"The problems of color are, first of all, the problems of society."

French historian and specialist in the Middle Ages Michel Pastouro came up with a large-scale project - the history of color in Western European societies, from ancient Rome to the 18th century. His books are fascinating, informative and with a sense of love for his work. Three editions were published in Russian -, translated "Red". From books we can learn what social, moral, artistic and religious values ​​have been associated with color at different times, as well as what are its prospects for the future. According to Pasturo, "it is society that 'produces' color, defines and gives meaning to it, develops codes and values ​​for it, regulates its use and its tasks."

“Over the centuries, the attire of the Mother of God changed color many times: a wooden sculpture made of linden, created at the turn of the first and second millennia and still kept in the Liege Museum, can serve as a clear evidence of this. This Romanesque Virgin Mary, as often happened at that time, was depicted in a black robe. Then, in the 13th century, according to the canons of Gothic iconography and theology, it was repainted in sky blue. However, at the end of the 17th century, the sculpture, like many other works of art, was given a “baroque” appearance: it was covered with gilding. She retained this color for two centuries, until 1880, when, in accordance with the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, she was repainted white. These four layers of paint of various colors, which over a thousand years have managed to cover a small wooden sculpture, turn it into a unique document of the history of art and symbolism.”

Blue

Why did the societies of the era of Antiquity and the early Middle Ages treat blue with complete indifference? Why, starting from the 12th century, does it gradually gain popularity in all areas of life, and why does blue tones in clothing and everyday culture become desirable and prestigious, significantly surpassing green and red? The study is devoted to understanding the history of relations between Europeans and the color blue, which is fraught with many mysteries and surprises.

“Having studied the heritage of Greek poets of a later period, Gladstone emphasizes the fact that blue is not mentioned at all in these texts, and green is extremely rare. And he comes to the conclusion: in all likelihood, the ancient Greeks had difficulties with the perception of these two colors.

Black

The author undertakes a real detective investigation of adventures, and often black misadventures in Western European culture. The color of primeval darkness, the Black Death and the Black Knight, in the Middle Ages it migrated to the robes of monks, soon began to dominate the Protestant wardrobe, turned into a favorite color of lawyers and businessmen, in the era of romanticism it turned out to be an integral sign of melancholy covers, and later a marker of elegance and chic and at the same time an indispensable attribute of the everyday life of a city dweller.

“In Europe from early Antiquity to the late Middle Ages, dyers very rarely achieved bright, rich black tones. The black they produced was more like brown or gray or navy blue; besides, the paint was not absorbed equally everywhere, was poorly fixed and gave the fabric an unpleasant, dirty, dull look. That is why black clothes were worn only by people of the lower social classes, those who were engaged in dirty work or shameful craft; everyone else wore black only under special circumstances, as a sign of mourning or as a sign of repentance.

Green

Until the 19th century, this color was one of the most difficult to produce and consolidate: chemically fragile, for many centuries it was associated with everything changeable, short-lived, fleeting: childhood, love, hope, luck, play, chance, money. Only romantics saw its close connection with nature, which remains relevant to this day, when green, now the color of health, freedom and hope, is entrusted with a high mission to save the planet.

“For the Romans, green, and perhaps even more so, blue, are 'barbarian' colors. Numerous examples can be found in the ancient Roman theater. When a German appears on the scene, the character is strange and more or less comical, he often looks like this: the face is fat and flabby, deathly pale or purple, curly red hair, eyes blue or green, the body is massive, obese, clothes in stripes or in a cage, its colors are dominated by green.

The peoples of the Middle East import from Asia and Africa a dye that has long remained unknown in Europe: indigo. This dye is obtained from the leaves of indigo, a plant that has many species, but none of them is found in Europe. Native to India and the Middle East, Indigonoska is a shrub reaching a maximum of two meters in height. A dye (indigotin), more effective than woad, is obtained from the upper young leaves. It gives silk, wool and cotton fabrics such a rich and long-lasting blue color that the dyer hardly needs to use mordant to fix the dye in the fibers of the fabric: sometimes it is enough just to dip the fabric in a vat of indigo and then spread it out in the open air to dry. If the color is too pale, this operation is repeated several times.

In those parts where the indigo grows, the use of indigo pigment began in the Neolithic era; thanks to this shrub, a fashion for blue in dyeing fabrics and clothes arose. In the same time immemorial, or a little later, indigo, especially Indian, becomes an export commodity. The peoples mentioned in the Bible began to use this paint long before the birth of Christ; however, it was expensive and was used only for high-quality fabrics. In Rome, on the contrary, the use of this dye remained limited, and the reason was not only the high cost (indigo was brought from afar), but also the fact that blue tones were not very popular in Roman society, although it cannot be said that they were completely absent in everyday life. life. The Romans, and before them the Greeks, were familiar with Asiatic indigo. They knew how to distinguish this effective dye from the woad produced by the Celts and Germans, and they knew that it came from India: hence the Latin name - indicum. But they did not know about its vegetable origin. The fact is that indigo leaves were crushed and turned into a dough-like mass, which was dried, and then taken out and sold already in the form of small briquettes. And buyers in Europe mistook them for minerals. Following Dioscorides, some authors argued that indigo is a semi-precious stone, a type of lapis lazuli. Belief in the mineral origin of indigo persisted in Europe until the 16th century.

Paints for painting: lapis lazuli and copper azure

The Bible says more about precious stones than paints. But even in this case, when translating and interpreting the text, the researcher often has questions. For example, sapphire, most often mentioned in the books of the Old Testament, does not always correspond to the stone known to us by this name, and sometimes it has more in common with lapis lazuli. We see the same confusion among the Greeks and Romans, as well as in the early Middle Ages: most encyclopedias and treatises on the healing properties of precious stones are well aware of these two minerals (which, as a rule, are considered equivalent) and clearly distinguish between them, but under the same the names may imply either sapphire or lapis lazuli (azurium, lazurium, lapis lazuli, lapis Scythium, sapphirum). Both are used in the creation of jewelry and magnificent works of art, but only lapis lazuli provides the paint used by artists.

Lapis lazuli, like indigo, came to Europe from the East. It is a very hard stone and is considered semi-precious today; in its natural state it is deep blue, with yellowish-white flecks or streaks. The ancients took them for gold (in fact, it is sulfur pyrite), which raised the prestige of the stone and increased its price. The most significant deposits of lapis lazuli were in Siberia, China, Tibet, as well as in Iran and Afghanistan - in the era of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the stone was supplied to Western Europe mainly from these two countries. Lapis lazuli was very expensive, because it was rare and brought from afar, besides, because of the extreme hardness of this mineral, it was very difficult to mine. The processing of native lapis lazuli into a pigment used in painting was a very lengthy and complex process: the stone had to be not only crushed, but first freed from impurities, leaving only blue particles, which are the least in it. The Greeks and Romans failed to master this technique: often they did not even remove impurities, but rubbed the whole mineral. That is why in their painting the blue color is not as pure and bright as in Asia or, later, in the Muslim East and the Christian West. Medieval artists invented a method of cleaning lapis lazuli using wax and soaking the crushed stone in water.

Pigment based on lapis lazuli gives many different and bright shades of blue. This paint does not fade in the light, but is not suitable for large surfaces, so it was more often used for small forms: it is she who will give medieval miniatures their wonderful blue. At the same time, due to the high price, only that part of the image, which was supposed to attract special attention, was covered with paint. However, the most widespread in Antiquity and the Middle Ages was a cheaper blue pigment, the so-called copper blue. It is a mineral, the basic copper carbonate, which occurs in nature not in the form of a stone, but in the form of crystals. It is not as resistant as lapis lazuli, and often changes color to green or black, and in its manufacture one must be very careful: if the mineral is rubbed too finely, the paint comes out faded; and if the particles are too large, they do not combine well with the binder, and the coating comes out grainy. The Greeks and Romans imported copper blue from Armenia (lapis armenus), from the island of Cyprus (caeruleum Сyprium) and from the Sinai Peninsula. In the Middle Ages, this mineral was mined in the mountains of Germany and Bohemia: hence its name - "mountain blue".

The ancients also knew how to make artificial paints - from copper filings mixed with sand and potash. In particular, the Egyptians, on the basis of similar copper silicates, managed to create blue and blue-green shades of wondrous beauty; we see them on objects found in tombs (statuettes, figurines, beads). In addition, they are often covered with a transparent glaze that makes them look like jewels. The Egyptians, like other peoples of the Near and Middle East, believed that the blue color brings prosperity and drives away evil forces. It was used in funeral rituals so that it could become a protection to the deceased in the afterlife. Often, similar properties were attributed to the green color, so it is present in the tombs along with blue.

In ancient Greece, blue was not valued so highly and was much less common, even taking into account the fact that in architecture and sculpture, where the Greeks often used multi-color paintings, the background against which relief figures stand out is sometimes blue (as, for example, on several friezes of the Parthenon). The dominant colors here are red, black, yellow and white; gold should also be added to them. For the Romans, even more than for the Greeks, blue is a gloomy, oriental, barbaric color; they were used rarely and reluctantly. In his Natural History, in the famous chapter on fine arts, Pliny the Elder states that the best painters use only four colors: white, yellow, red and black. The only exception is mosaic: coming from the East, it brought with it a livelier color scheme, in which there are more greens and blues and which would later find a place for itself in Byzantine and early Christian Western art. In the mosaic, blue is not only the color of water, it is used as a background and often symbolizes light. All this people will remember in the Middle Ages.

Did the ancient Greeks and Romans see blue?

If, contrary to the opinion of some scientists of the century before last, the Romans nevertheless distinguished the blue color, then they treated him indifferently at best, and at worst - hostilely. This is understandable: blue for them is mainly the color of the barbarians, Celts and Germans, who, according to Caesar and Tacitus, painted their bodies with blue paint to intimidate enemies. Ovid says that the aging Germans, wanting to hide their gray hair, tint their hair with woad juice. And Pliny the Elder states that the wives of the Britons dye their bodies dark blue with the same dye (glastum) before indulging in ritual orgies; from this he deduces that blue is a color to be feared and avoided.

In Rome, blue clothing was not liked, it was considered eccentric (especially during the Republic and under the first emperors) and symbolized mourning. In addition, this color, the light shade of which seemed harsh and unpleasant, and the dark one - frightening, was often associated with death and the afterlife. Blue eyes were considered almost a physical handicap. In a woman, they testified to a tendency to vice; a blue-eyed man was considered effeminate, similar to a barbarian and simply ridiculous.

Birth of liturgical flowers

Since the 7th century, when the Church introduced a kind of luxury into its everyday life, gold and bright colors began to be used in fabrics for church decoration and vestments of priests. However, there was no single rule for their use; each diocese decided this in its own way.

At the beginning of the second millennium, more texts appear about the religious symbolism of flowers. Most interestingly, none of them not only does not consider, but does not even mention the color blue. It's like it doesn't exist at all. And this despite the fact that unknown authors discuss in detail three shades of red (ruber, coccinus, purpureus), two shades of white (albus and candidus), two shades of black (ater and niger), as well as green, yellow, purple, gray and gold. But about blue - not a word. In subsequent centuries, the picture does not change.

Since the 12th century, the most prominent theologians who have written about the liturgy (Honorius Augustodunsky, Rupert Deutsky, Hugh of Saint-Victor, Jean Avranches, Jean Belet) increasingly speak about color in their writings. In relation to the three main colors, they are unanimous: white means purity and innocence, black - abstinence, repentance and sorrow, red - the blood shed by Christ and for Christ, the Passion of Christ, martyrdom, self-sacrifice and divine love. Sometimes they also talk about other colors: green (this is an “intermediate” color, medius color), violet (for them it is a kind of “half-black”, subniger, and by no means a mixture of red and blue), and also occasionally mention gray and yellow. But about blue - not a word. For them, it simply does not exist.

Nor does blue exist for someone whose judgments about liturgical colors would determine religious rites up to the Council of Trent - for Cardinal Lothario Conti di Segni, who later became Pope Innocent III. Around 1194-1195, while still a cardinal deacon, Lothario di Conti, whom Celestine III temporarily removed from the affairs of the papal curia, wrote several treatises, one of which, the famous “On the Sacrament of the Holy Altar” (“De Sacro Altaris Mysterio”), dedicated to the mass. In addition, the treatise contains many details about the fabrics that were used in the Roman diocese for church decoration and priestly vestments before his own pontificate. Let's see what is written in the future pope's treatise on flowers.

White, being a symbol of purity, is suitable for holidays dedicated to angels, virgins and confessors, for Christmas and Epiphany, Maundy Thursday, Easter, Ascension and All Saints' Day. Red is a symbol of the blood shed by Christ and for Christ, suitable for the feasts of the apostles and martyrs, the Exaltation and Pentecost. Black, the color of sorrow and repentance, should be used for Mass for the Dead, Advent, the Day of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem and during Lent. And green must be used on those days for which neither white nor red nor black is suitable, for - and for the historian of color this is an extremely important remark - "green is the middle color between white (albedinem), black (nigredinem) and red ( ruborem)" (Quoted by Tkachenko A.A. The emblematic of liturgical flowers in the treatise of J. Lothario (Pope Innocent III) "On the Holy Sacrament of the Altar" // Signum. 2005. Issue 3. P. 40. - Approx. ed. ). The author adds that black can sometimes be replaced by purple and green by yellow. However, like his predecessors, he says absolutely nothing about blue.
This silence seems strange, because it was then, in the last years of the 12th century, that the blue color had already begun its expansion: for several decades it managed to make its way into the church - it can be seen on stained-glass windows, enamels, altarpieces, fabrics, vestments of priests. But it is not included in the system of liturgical colors and will never fall into it. This system was formed too early for any, even the most modest, place for the color blue to be found in it. After all, even today the Catholic Mass is built on the three “primary” colors of ancient societies: white, black and red; however, on weekdays they are allowed to be “diluted” with green.

Chromophilic prelates and chromophobic prelates

So, the blue color is not provided for by the code of liturgical colors. But in the fine arts of the early Middle Ages, three periods should be distinguished. In the early Christian era, blue is used mainly in mosaics, in combination with green, yellow and white; and in mosaic compositions it can always be clearly distinguished from black, which cannot be said about the wall paintings of the same time or about the miniatures of later centuries. For a long time in illuminated manuscripts only occasionally comes across blue, and exclusively dark blue; this color usually appears in the background or on the periphery - it does not have its own symbolism, therefore it does not participate in the formation of the meaning of works of art and cult images. However, until the 10th or even the 11th century, it is completely absent from many miniatures, especially in the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula.

But on the miniatures created in the Carolingian Empire, starting from the 9th century, blue is found more and more often: it is both the background color on which the figures of rulers look especially majestic, and one of the celestial colors, indicating the presence or intervention of the Almighty, and sometimes already the color of the clothes of some characters (the emperor, the Blessed Virgin, this or that saint). But in these cases, we are not talking about a bright, radiant blue, but about a dull dark blue color, with a gray or purple tint. At the turn of the second millennium, blue tones in miniatures become lighter and less saturated; however, in some images, they are increasingly beginning to act as real “light”, moving from the background closer to the viewer in order to “illuminate” the scenes unfolding in the foreground. A little less than a century will pass, and this dual role - the divine light and the background against which the figures of the characters stand out - will begin to play the blue color in the stained glass art of the 12th century. Light, radiant blue color, very stable, combined not with green, as was customary in the painting of the early Middle Ages, but with red.

Chromophilic prelates and chromophobic prelates clashed in bitter opposition. For example, in the 1120-1150s, a real war raged between the monks of the abbeys of Cluny and Citeau. If color is light, then by its very nature it is involved in the divine. And consequently, to give color more space in the earthly world - in particular, in the temple - means to push back darkness for the sake of the triumph of light, that is, God. The desire for color and the desire for light are inextricably linked with each other. If, on the contrary, color is a material substance, just a shell, then it is in no way an emanation of the deity: it is a useless decoration that man has added to the divine Creation. It must be rejected, expelled from the temple, because it is not only vain, but also harmful, because it blocks the transitus, the path that leads a person to God.

Issues that were actively discussed in the 8th-9th centuries or even earlier - in the middle of the 12th century, continue to cause heated controversy. After all, the point here is not only in theology or philosophy: all these issues are closely connected with everyday life, with the performance of religious rites and with artistic creativity. The answers to them determine the role of color in the habitual behavior of a true Christian and in his environment, in the atmosphere of the places he visits, in the images he contemplates, in the clothes he wears, in the objects that he has to hold in his hands. And most importantly, they determine the place and role of color in church decoration, as well as in the visual arts and in religious rites.

There are chromophilic prelates, who equate color with light, and chromophobic prelates, for whom color is matter. Among the first, the most prominent figure is Abbot Suger, who in 1130-1140 supervised the construction of the Saint-Denis Basilica and attached great importance to color. For him, as for the great abbots of Cluny during the previous two centuries, nothing can be too beautiful for the house of God. All arts and crafts, all material media, painting, stained glass, enamels, fabrics, jewelry made of precious stones and metals should contribute to the transformation of the basilica into a true temple of color, because the light, beauty and luxury required for worship of God are primarily expressed through colors. And from now on, blue will be considered the main color, because, like gold, blue is light, divine light, heavenly light, light against which all created things are imprinted. From that time on, in Western European art, light, gold and blue would become almost synonymous for several centuries.

In the 12th century, the presence or absence of flowers that monks and laity were allowed (or not allowed) to see in the church could depend on the personal position of one or another prelate or theologian in relation to color. This will no longer be the case in the next century.

Kandinsky believed that blue is the color of peace: “The deeper the blue color, the stronger it calls a person to infinity, awakens in him a desire for the pure and, finally, for the supernatural. Blue is a typically heavenly color.” Blue, blue is such a familiar color with many shades, but it turns out that there are many tragic moments in the history of this color. It took a long time to be noticed and loved. Professor Olshansky wrote: “The adjective blue, with which our ancestors brought together the name of the bird, also very ancient, formed using the suffix -n- from the same stem as the verb to shine.The original meaning of blue is "brilliant, shining". , and they denoted the "degree of brilliance" of any color. Therefore, "black-colored people" were blue from sweat, and the blue sea is a sea that plays with highlights. The original meaning of the root si was preserved by the verb to shine. The blue color is located between red and green. Being closer to green, blue acquires such shades as aquamarine, turquoise, cyan.blue has two main shades: light blue, that is, blue, and dark blue.In Russian and some other languages, for the region Asti blue, there are two main names - blue and cyan. From the point of view of meaning, cyan can be considered as a variant of blue (cyan \u003d light blue). In Indo-European languages, the group of basic color designations includes 11 words, in Russian it consists of 12. The Russian words "blue" and "blue" in English correspond to one word "blue". Linguists believe that it came from the Indo-European root *bhlewos, meaning "yellow". Initially, this word came to the ancient Greek language in the form of the word phalos - white, and in Old English in the form of the word pale - pale. The modern word blue (from the same root, but with a different color) came through French. Linguists unanimously recognize the much older origin of the word blue compared to blue. According to Fasmer's Dictionary Russian. blue goes back to other ind. čyāmás 'dark, black. In antiquity, the world was perceived mainly in contrasts between light and dark, and the colors of the rainbow were perceived as indefinite halftones between white and black. The words for blue in modern European languages ​​come from two sources: to a lesser extent from words that used to mean green, and to a greater extent from words that used to mean black. The same mixture of black and blue is found in the etymology of the word "blue" in completely different languages ​​- for example, in Chinese. As a result, the assumption arises that in the early period of the history of all these languages, "blue" was not yet recognized as an independent concept. In the literature of the XI century. in many cases, blue still conveys the meaning of just a dark color. Lev Uspensky wrote: "If the word is formed from the same stem as" shine ", then it meant
originally "shining, shining"; but, perhaps, it is connected with "gray".
In this case, the word is closer to the Avesian "syava", which means "dark",
"the black". If so, then "radiance" has nothing to do with it. Apparently the question is
cannot be considered resolved."
In Greek, whose color lexicon has been formed over several centuries, two words are most often used to define blue: “glaukos” and “kyaneos”. The latter seems to have come from the name of some mineral or metal; this word does not have a Greek root, and scientists have long failed to clarify its meaning. In the Homeric era, the word “kyaneos” denoted both the blue color of the eyes and the black color of mourning clothes, but never the blue of the sky or the sea. . But the word “glaukos” meant either green, then gray, then blue, and sometimes even yellow or brown. It conveyed not a strictly defined color, but rather its fading or weak saturation: therefore, both the color of water and the color of the eyes, as well as the color of leaves or honey, were characterized in this way. The difficulty in determining the blue color occurs in classical, and then in medieval Latin. "In medieval Latin, two new words denoting the color blue easily took root: one came from the Germanic languages ​​(“blavus”), the other from Arabic (“azureus”). These two words will subsequently supplant all the others and will finally be fixed in the Romance languages. So , in French (as in Italian and Spanish), the words that most often denote the color blue did not come from Latin, but from German and Arabic - “bleu” from “blau” and “azur” from “lazaward”. The Romans referred to hostile to the blue color, because it was the color of the barbarians, Celts, Germans, who painted their bodies with blue paint to intimidate enemies. In Western Europe in the Middle Ages, blue was a rarely used color; not been used yet. In the XI-XII centuries, interest in blue tones is manifested primarily in the visual arts. Until the 12th century, blue, as a rule, remains an auxiliary color or remains on the periphery; in its symbolic meaning, it loses much to the three “primary colors” of all ancient societies - red, white and black. And then, in just a few decades, everything suddenly changes: blue acquires a new status in painting and iconography, increasingly appears on armorial shields and is used in ceremonial clothes. For example, the Virgin Mary is beginning to be depicted in blue tones.

the Virgin Mary

Following the example of the Virgin Mary, kings and nobles begin to wear blue clothes.

Saint Louis
The first king of France to do this regularly was St. Louis. In Russian culture, there were far fewer words expressing shades of blue than terms relating to red, yellow or green shades of color. The blue color was usually endowed with magical properties. The epithet blue is used in folklore in connection with death. Literary critic and translator A. A. Kosorukov wrote that in pagan mythology, the blue color is associated with the lower world of water spirits. First of all, it was associated with water, which, in turn, was considered in ancient times a place where evil, hostile forces lurk. It is interesting that in Russia the devil was called the word blueberry. blue color with the color of the sky and the characteristic was only positive. Prejudices against the blue color led to the fact that the name blue sounded in a foreign language and spelling. hofmeisterin.

A negative attitude in Russia for a long time related to dark blue, but light blue was positive. Blue belongs to the seven primary colors of the spectrum. But people did not always notice and use it in their lives. On the first wall images dating back to the late Paleolithic (when human society had already developed, but people still led a nomadic life), this color is absent. In the Neolithic era, when people began to lead a settled life and mastered the technique of painting objects, they began to use red and yellow paints, and blue had to wait their turn for a very long time. Although this color has been widely represented in nature since the birth of the Earth, a person spent a lot of time and labor to learn how to reproduce it, make it for their own needs and use it freely. In Russia, the blue color was obtained from the chenille plant. tinting, the coloring matter contained in the leaves.

Woad dye

The explanatory dictionary of V. Dahl gives a number of Russian folk names for woad: krutik, bruise, chenille, chenille, and Max Vasmer - German indigo. In Europe, various local dyes were used, but already in the Middle Ages, a new road began to enter the European markets in significant quantities, but quality indigo. The dye, indigo, was once made from plants. Therefore, clothes of a rich blue color were then far from being the most affordable. Today, almost the entire amount of dye produced is synthetic, and "blue jeans" are synonymous with a democratic mass product. Natural indigo was obtained from the leaves of indigo plants.

Indigo dye

Indigo is one of the first dyes that has come down to us on Earth - it was used in ancient civilizations - Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece and Rome, not to mention India and the countries of Southeast Asia itself. They dyed with indigo mainly silk, but not only. On cuneiform clay tablets, which scientists presumably attribute to the 7th century BC, a recipe for dyeing with indigo wool is described. The difference in attitudes towards blue and blue was reflected in Russian idioms and sayings: a blue stocking, but a blue dream, a blue glow at the end of the tunnel (for the dead), a saucer with a blue border. Blue, like other primary colors, has many shades of warm and cold colors. Initially, the function of designating blue in Russian was performed by the words azure, azure, and in the 15th-16th centuries. these words have a strong “competitor” - the word blue. Already in the works of Pushkin, azure, azure (azure) were found twice as rarely as blue. According to some researchers, the Russian word “blue” comes from the word “dove” (one versions - according to the color of the ebb of the bird's neck feathers, although most likely we are talking about the color of the bird's head plumage.) (cf. lat. columbus - "dove"); according to other researchers, on the contrary, “dove” from “blue.” In the first written sources, blue was used only as the name of a horse suit. Its meaning, however, is not entirely clear. Under the blue suit was meant a horse or 'light or dark gray with blue? Blue color is a natural symbol of the radiant sky, a synonym for everything divine, pure and sublime, therefore, in ancient iconography, the halo of the gods is painted blue. In Freemasonry, the blue color personified spiritual perfection and lofty ideals (hence the expression - "blue dream"). In the history of Europe, the blue color was associated with high birth, aristocracy and nobility of the nobility, in whose veins, figuratively speaking, “blue blood” flows. All the details of the clothing of the French kings were made from blue matter embroidered with golden lilies. In the Russian army, the most prestigious, airborne, troops are called "blue berets." A negative attitude towards the blue color was not everywhere. It was interesting to know that they painted the inside of the pyramids in blue in ancient Egypt; Buddha and Krishna are also blue. In Sanskrit, the word Krishna means “black”, “dark” or “dark blue”. In painting, Krishna is depicted with blue or dark blue skin. In poetry, the color of Krishna's skin is described as "having the shade of blue clouds"

Buddha

Krishna
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, any color with a hint of blue was called "strange colors." In the nobility, such colors were popular, but among ordinary people they caused a negative reaction. In the English language and literature, there was a positive attitude towards blue, but there are some exceptions. In music, there is an American direction - blues; the blues is nothing but the sadness of a kind person. According to its physiological effects, blue is the most depressing color, it lowers blood pressure and at the same time reduces the pulse and breathing rhythm; it calms and relaxes, sometimes even excessively. Blue with its numerous shades is now associated with the sky and water, its shades can convey the airiness of clouds and the calmness of a cloudless sky, fresh cool air and the mood of the sea. Shades of this color range from dark blue-violet to pale aquamarine.
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Based on the fact that blue tones are relatively rare in the fine arts of antiquity, and most importantly, on the vocabulary of the ancient Greek and Latin languages, philologists of the century before last put forward the assumption that the Greeks, and after them the Romans, did not distinguish blue at all. Indeed, in both Greek and Latin it is difficult to find an exact and widespread name for this color, while there are several designations for white, red and black. In Greek, a color vocabulary that took several centuries to mature, two words are most commonly used to define blue: glaukos and kyaneos. The latter seems to have come from the name of some mineral or metal; its root is not Greek, and scientists for a long time could not clarify its meaning. In the Homeric era, this word denoted the blue color of the eyes, and the black color of mourning clothes, but never the blue of the sky or the sea. However, of the sixty adjectives that are used to describe the natural elements and landscape in the Iliad and Odyssey, only three are definitions of color; but there are a lot of epithets relating to light, on the contrary. In the classical era, the word kyaneos denoted a dark color, and not only dark blue, but also purple, black, brown. In fact, this word conveys not so much a shade as a mood. And here is the word glaukos, which existed in the archaic era, is used very often by Homer and denotes green, gray, blue, and sometimes even yellow or brown. It conveys not so much a shade of color as its fading or weak saturation: therefore, they determined the color of water, and the color of the eyes, as well as leaves or honey.

And vice versa, to designate the color of objects, plants and minerals, which, it would seem, can only be blue, Greek authors use the names of completely different colors. For example, iris, periwinkle and cornflower can be called red ( erythros), green ( prasos) or black ( melas) . When describing the sea and the sky, a variety of colors are mentioned, but in any case they do not belong to the blue color scheme. That is why scientists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were preoccupied with the question: Did the ancient Greeks see the color blue, or at least did they see it in the same way as we do today? Some answered this question in the negative, putting forward theories about the evolution of color perception. According to them, people who belong to societies that are technologically and intellectually advanced or claim to be so - such as modern Western societies - are much better able to distinguish most colors and give them accurate names than those who belong to "primitive" or ancient societies. .

Illustration from Blue: A History of Color

Illustration from Blue: A History of Color

These theories, which immediately after their appearance caused fierce controversy and have supporters even today, seem to me unfounded and incorrect. Not only do they rely on the very vague and dangerous principle of ethnocentrism (on the basis of what criteria can one or another society be called "developed", and who has the right to give such definitions?), They also confuse vision (a predominantly biological phenomenon) with perception (a phenomenon predominantly cultural). In addition, they ignore the fact that in any era, in any society, for any person, there is a difference between the “real” color (if the word “real” really means something), the perceived color and the name of the color - and sometimes huge. If there is no definition of blue in the color vocabulary of the ancient Greeks, or this definition is very approximate, it is necessary, first of all, to study this phenomenon within the framework of the vocabulary itself, its formation and functioning, then within the framework of the ideology of the societies that use this vocabulary, and not look for connection with the neurobiological characteristics of the people who made up these societies. The visual apparatus of the ancient Greeks is absolutely identical to the visual apparatus of the Europeans of the twentieth century. But color problems are by no means reducible to problems of a biological or neurobiological nature. In many ways, these are social and ideological problems.

The same difficulty in defining the color blue occurs in classical and then in medieval Latin. Of course, there is a whole set of names here ( caeruleus, caesius, glaucus, cyaneus, lividus, venetus, aerius, ferreus), but all these definitions are polysemic, imprecise, and there is no logic or consistency in their use. Take at least the most common - caeruleus. Based on etymology ( cera- wax), it denotes the color of wax, that is, a cross between white, brown and yellow. Later, they begin to apply it to some shades of green or black, and only then to the blue color scheme. Such inaccuracy and inconsistency of vocabulary reflects the weak interest in the blue color of Roman authors, and then the authors of the early Christian Middle Ages. That is why two new words denoting the color blue easily took root in the vocabulary of medieval Latin: one came from the Germanic languages ​​( blavus), another from Arabic ( azureus). These two words will eventually supplant all the others and finally gain a foothold in the Romance languages. So, in French (as in Italian and Spanish), the words that most often denote the color blue did not come from Latin, but from German and Arabic - blue from blue and Azur from lazaward .

Illustration from Blue: A History of Color

Illustration from Blue: A History of Color

Illustration from Blue: A History of Color

Illustration from Blue: A History of Color

The lack of words to define color or their inaccuracy, their evolution over time, frequency of use - and the features of the lexical structure in general - all this set of data is of great interest to anyone who studies the history of color.

If, contrary to the opinion of some scientists of the century before last, the Romans nevertheless distinguished the color blue, then they treated it with indifference at best, and at worst with hostility. This is understandable: blue for them is mainly the color of the barbarians, Celts and Germans, who, according to Caesar and Tacitus, painted their bodies blue to intimidate enemies. Ovid says that the aging Germans, wanting to hide their gray hair, tint their hair with woad juice. And Pliny the Elder claims that the wives of the Britons dye their bodies dark blue with the same dye ( glastum), before indulging in ritual orgies; from this he deduces that blue is a color to be feared and avoided.

In Rome, blue clothing was not liked, it was considered eccentric (especially during the Republic and under the first emperors) and symbolized mourning. In addition, this color, the light shade of which seemed harsh and unpleasant, and the dark one - frightening, was often associated with death and the afterlife. Blue eyes were considered almost a physical handicap. In a woman, they testified to a tendency to vice; a blue-eyed man was considered effeminate, similar to a barbarian and simply ridiculous. And, of course, in the theater this feature of appearance was often used to create comic characters. So, for example, Terentius rewards several of his heroes with blue eyes and at the same time either curly red hair, or huge growth, or obesity - both of these, and the other, and the third in Republic-era Rome were considered a flaw. This is how he describes the character in his comedy The Mother-in-Law, written around 160 BC: "Tall, red, fat, blue-eyed, curly, / Freckled face."

Translation by Nina Kulish

Pasturo, M. Blue. Color History / Michel Pastouro; per. from fr. N. Kulish. - M .: New Literary Review, 2015. - 144 p. (Series: Theory of Fashion Journal Library)

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1 Gladstone W. E. Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age. Oxford, 1858; Magnus H. Histoire de l'évolution du sens des couleurs. Paris, 1878; Weise O. Die Farbenbezeichungen bei der Griechen und Römern // Philologus. 1888. However, some scholars were of a different opinion: see, for example, Götz K. E. Waren die Römer blaublind? // Archiv für lateinische Lexicographie und Grammatic. 1908.

2 Magnus H. Histoire de l'évolution du sens des couleurs. pp. 47-48.

3 For the difficulties of defining colors in ancient Greek, see the following authors: Gernet L. Dénomination et perception des couleurs chez les Grecs // Problèmes de la couleur / éd. I. Meyerson. Paris, 1957; Rowe C. Conceptions of color and color symbolism in the ancient world // Eranos-Jahrbuch. 1972 Vol. 41. P. 327-364.

4 For examples, see Müller-Bore K. Stilistische Untersuchungen zum Farbwort und zur Verwendung der Farbe in der älteren griechischen Poesie. Berlin, 1922. Ss. 30-31, 43-44, etc.

5 Among the philologists who share this point of view, I will name the following: Glastone W. E.. Op. cit. T.III; Geiger A. Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Menschheit. Stuttgart, 1978; Magnus H. Op. cit.; Price T. R. The Color System of Virgil // The American Journal of Philology. 1883. Among their opponents is Marry F. Die Frage nach der geschichtlichen Entwicklung des Farbensinnes. Vienna, 1879; Gotz K. E. Op. cit. For a detailed overview of the various positions on this issue, see the book. Schulz W. Die Farbenempfindungen der Hellenen. Leipzig, 1904.

6 See, for example, Berlin B., Kay P. Basic Color Terms. Their Universality and Evolution. Berkeley, 1969. This book has caused fierce controversy among linguists, anthropologists and neurologists.

7 André J. Op. cit. The etymology that derives caeruleus from caelum (sky) reveals its inconsistency in phonetic and philological analysis. See, however, the hypothesis of A. Ernu and A. Meillet in the Etymological Dictionary of the Latin Language (Paris, 1979) about the existence of an intermediate form caeluleus, nowhere attested. And for medieval authors, whose etymology was built on different principles than the scientists of the twentieth century, the connection between ceruleus and cereus was quite obvious.

8 There is an extensive literature on this topic; but first of all, the book Kristol A. M. Color should be highlighted. Les Langues romanes devant le phénomène de la couleur. Berne, 1978. For problems with blue in Old French before the middle of the thirteenth century, see Schäfer B. Die Semantik der Farbadjective im Altfranzoesischen. Tübingen, 1987. There was often confusion in Old French: the words bleu, blo, blef, which originate from the Germanic blue("blue"), mixed with the word bloi, derived from the late Latin blavus, distorted flavus, that is, "yellow".

9 "Omnes vero se Britanni vitro inficiunt, quod caeruleum efficit colorem, atque hoc horridiores sunt in pugna aspectu" - Caesar. Commentarii de bello gallico. V, 14, 2. (“And all the British in general are painted with woad, which gives their body a blue color, and this makes them look more terrible than others in battles.” - Translated by M. M. Pokrovsky.

Is it possible to tell about the history of Western Europe in a fascinating, exciting and extremely authentic way? Yes, if Michel Pastouro, a French medievalist historian, who, in addition to knowledge of history, heraldry and cultural studies, also has an excellent literary style, tells. Pasturo has written a series of books about color: blue, black, green (available in Russian), red (translated) and is working on others.

By studying the history of color, you can find out how European society has changed. For example, in ancient times, clothes were only of three colors - white (that is, clean, new), black (that is, old, dirty) and red (that is, dyed). In those days, simple and harmless dyes were needed, and until about the 11th century, dyeing a piece of cloth most often meant "replacing its original color with one of the shades of red, from the palest ocher or pink tones to the richest purples."

In the book, Pasturo talks about the first blue dye brought to Europe from Asia - indigo, extracted from the leaves of indigo. Interestingly, in the Middle Ages, indigo was considered a precious stone. “The fact is that indigo leaves were crushed and turned into a dough-like mass, which was dried, and then taken out and sold already in the form of small briquettes. And buyers in Europe mistook them for minerals. Following Dioscorides, some authors argued that indigo is a semi-precious stone, a type of lapis lazuli.

Pasturo is also surprised by the fact that the ancient Greeks, and after them the Romans, did not distinguish blue. Despite the fact that the sky has always been blue, and anthropologists claim that the optic nerve has not changed in two thousand years, the blue color was hardly mentioned in ancient European culture. Perhaps this was due to the image of the barbarians, Celts and Germans, who, according to Caesar and Tacitus, painted their bodies with blue paint to intimidate enemies.

“Blue eyes were considered almost a physical handicap. In a woman, they testified to a tendency to vice; a blue-eyed man was considered effeminate, similar to a barbarian and simply ridiculous. Terentius rewards several of his heroes with blue eyes, and at the same time - either curly red hair, or huge growth, or obesity - both, and the other, and the third in Republic-era Rome was considered a flaw. This is how he describes the character in his comedy The Mother-in-Law, written around 160 BC: "Tall, red, fat, blue-eyed, curly, freckled face."

With the beginning of the Middle Ages, everything changed dramatically. Colors other than white, red, and black became popular, and a new culture emerged. Dark, dull and gloomy colors receded into the background, giving way to clear and cheerful. Pasturo talks about the wooden sculpture of the Virgin Mary, the story of which well illustrates the attitude of society towards color. Created in the 11th century and depicted in a black robe (as a sign of mourning for a dead son), in the 13th century, according to the canons of Gothic iconography and theology, it was repainted in sky blue (light, bringing goodness and hope). However, at the end of the 17th century, the sculpture was given a “baroque” appearance: it was covered with gilding. She retained this color for two centuries, until 1880, when, in accordance with the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, she was repainted white.

In the Renaissance, with flowers, everything was also not easy. People believed that nature is harmonious and any intrusion into natural processes, like change and mixing, is the work of the devil. Dye shops never mix two colors to make a third. Artists layered each other to create different hues, but direct mixing in the palette was unacceptable. However, Leonardo da Vinci, who wrote out the secrets of creating paints from various sources and wrote a treatise on painting, according to historians, did not use these tips himself and clearly violated medieval rules.

And finally, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, blue stood at the head of the denim era. “All Levi Strauss jeans from their birth in 1870 were exclusively blue, since denim has always been dyed only with indigo, and no other dye. The fabric was too thick to fully absorb the dye. But it was precisely this unevenness of color that ensured the popularity of the products: the color was as if alive, it seemed to the owner of trousers or overalls that they were changing with him, sharing his fate. When a few years later, thanks to advances in dye chemistry, it became possible to indigo dye any fabric so that the color was even and durable, jeans manufacturers had to artificially bleach or discolor blue trousers to make them look faded as before.