The Enduring Allure of Blue: A Journey Through History
Dec 18, 2024For most of human history, blue was hard to make and expensive to buy. That rarity is a big part of why it became linked with the sacred, the royal and the precious, long before it became the everyday colour of jeans, logos and app icons.
A rare colour in the ancient world
Blue is surprisingly rare in nature as a stable pigment, so early civilisations went to great lengths to get it.
- Egypt: The ancient Egyptians developed Egyptian blue, made by heating sand, copper and lime together. It's often described as the first synthetic pigment, and it was used on temple walls, statues and tomb paintings.
- Mesopotamia and Persia: Deep blue lapis lazuli, mined in what is now Afghanistan, was traded over long distances and used for sacred and royal objects.
- China: Cobalt blue was used on ceramics from the Tang dynasty onwards, and became famous in the blue-and-white porcelain of the Ming dynasty, which was admired and copied around the world.
Achaemenid ornament made from lapis lazuli. Image: Livius.org
Faith and royalty in medieval Europe
In medieval Europe, the most prized blue was ultramarine, ground from lapis lazuli imported from Afghanistan. It could cost more than gold, so painters usually saved it for the most important parts of a picture, above all the robes of the Virgin Mary. That helped make blue a colour of heaven and holiness.
Over the same period blue also became a colour of status. French kings adopted it in their coat of arms, and blue gradually moved from a minor colour to one associated with nobility and authority.
Blue-and-white grape charger, Ming dynasty. Image: Alain R. Truong
Prussian blue and a more affordable colour
Blue stayed expensive until the early 1700s, when Prussian blue was discovered in Berlin, more or less by accident. It was one of the first modern synthetic pigments, and it made a strong, deep blue far more affordable for painters, printers and dyers.
Prussian blue reached Japan in the 1800s and became a favourite of woodblock printmakers. Hokusai used it in The Great Wave off Kanagawa, one of the most recognisable images in the world.
The modern era: blue for everyone
- Fashion: Denim was originally dyed with natural indigo. When synthetic indigo arrived at the end of the 1800s, blue dye became cheap, and blue jeans went on to become one of the most widely worn garments in the world.
- Art: In his Blue Period, from about 1901 to 1904, Picasso painted in sombre blues to express poverty, grief and loneliness.
- Politics: Blue appears on the flags of the United Nations and the European Union, where it's meant to suggest peace and unity.
Portrait of Jaime Sabartés by Picasso
Blue in branding
Today blue is one of the most common colours in branding, especially where a company wants to come across as steady and trustworthy.
- Technology and finance: Companies such as IBM, Facebook and LinkedIn, and many banks, build their identities around blue.
- Healthcare: Blue's calm, clean associations make it a common choice for medical and wellness brands.
- Luxury: Tiffany & Co. turned one specific shade of robin's-egg blue into one of the most recognisable brand colours there is.
Blue Phoenix by Tiffany & Co.
What blue means
- Calm: Its connection with sky and sea gives it a restful, open quality.
- Trust and loyalty: In many Western cultures blue suggests reliability, which is part of why it's so popular with banks and insurers.
- The sacred: From medieval paintings of the Virgin Mary to the blue skin of Hindu deities such as Krishna, blue has long been linked with the divine.
Blue today
Blue is everywhere now, from app icons and website links to environmental campaigns. It's still one of the most popular colours in interface design because it reads clearly and feels calm. It's remarkable to think that a colour once worth more than gold is now the default colour of a hyperlink.
From lapis lazuli and Egyptian temples to denim and digital design, blue's story is one of a rare luxury becoming part of everyday life, and it's still changing as designers find new uses for it.
Read about green here: The Enduring Legacy of Green: A Colour of Nature, Symbolism, and Innovation
