The colour Blue
The satin bowerbird has a cunning plan to attract females, one that has proven irresistible. He adorns his bower with an array of blues, using everyday detritus such as old pens, bottle tops and clothes pegs to create a dazzling home.
I suspect I’m part bowerbird. I love the thrill of finding a piece of cobalt sea glass, harvesting blueberries and finding the perfect sky blue yarn. I’m not alone in this, as blue has been consistently voted as the world’s most popular colour. So it’s surprising that western culture didn’t fully embrace blue until the Middle Ages.
Where the Egyptians were hip to it and the Celts ran wild with it, the difficulty (and expense) of reproducing blue limited its use. According to Kassia St Clair in her book, The Secret Lives of Colour, this changed during the 12th century when methods for producing woad improved, resulting in a rich and stable dye. At a time when strict laws governed what colours could be worn (purple was forbidden for peasants, for example), blue slipped through the cracks and was accessible to all and sundry.
COLOUR FACTS: BLUE
Crayola has undertaken two polls to determine the most popular colour in their range. Blue won hands-down both times.
The first synthetic pigment was made by the Egyptians. They melted quartz sand, lime copper and an alkali, then ground the resulting glass into powder.
When indigo became popular in the 15th century, it was prohibited in both Germany and France to protect the woad industry.
17th-century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer used ultramarine in Girl with a Pearl Earring. The pigment was made from ground lapis lazuli and was more precious than gold.