Blue

Below are a few points of thought on the colour blue that I've taken from an article in The Guardian written about by Miles Davis' album 'Kind of Blue' (25/07/09, extract from Richard William's book 'The Blue Moment: Miles Davis's kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music'). As we all know, different colours and shades can reinforce various emotions and alter our interpretation of things. But some of these debatable ideas and facts also take blue into account as a word and a music genre, offering possible inspiration for further use and thought of blue- both visually and audibly.
A lot of the article appeared to be so distant from likely interpretations of blue, I would say much of what Richard Williams has written about 'blue' as a colour is probably not even worth taking into account! But it is interesting to read about cultural ideas and artists' views of the colour blue...


- "A nice word to say, and to sing, the gentle explosion of its initial double-consonant immediately softened and then succeeded by a long and shapely vowel."
- 'L'heure bleue' (the blue hour) is a time between work and play defined by "transience and evanescence"- basically a time between two aspects of life, which briefly passes and quickly fades away.
- Blue is the colour of:
the Virgin Mary's cloak
Tribal dyes
The suits worn by J Edgar Hoover's FBI men
Rock 'n' Roll denim
- Some expressions, film and music quotes that have used and phrased various shades of blue: Blue velvet, blue angel, blue valentines, blue moon, blue and sentimental, love is blue, way to blue, midnight blue, almost blue, born to be blue, blue on blue.
- "Goethe dressed Young Werther in a blue coat and, in his 'Theory of Colours', observed that "blue brings the principle of darkness with it"".
- Rilke wrote his poems on blue paper.
- Cezanne believed that by adding blue to every colour on his palette he could create the sense of natural light.
- Kadinsky wrote: "Blue unflods in its lower depths the element of tranquility. The brighter it becomes, the more it loses its sound".
- Matisse once said he was "pierced in the heart" by the blue of a butterflies wings.

My painting of 'The Little Fourteen Year Old Dancer'

Painting of the Sculpture

Acrylic, lace.

By request from Laura! This is a painting I did of the sculpture a few years ago. This was part of a study rather than an actual piece. I think it was part of my GCSE project so it was quite a while ago now! I was very encouraged to capture the use of mixed media, as this is a key aspect of the sculpture that I admire, along with the childish confidence of the pose.

The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, Edgar Degas

[Sculpture]
The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer
By Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
1880

This is one of my all time favourite art pieces that I have loved since a very young age! I think I must have loved the innocence and beauty of the stucture, and was inspired by the use of various highly relevant medium, so much I did my own mixed-media painting of it. He carved her with wax, using a real ballet dress and shoes, and horse hair for the hair.
I just read an article in The Guardian that said one of the sculptures (he did a few variations of it) was sold for £5m five years ago, and is now back in the transfer market at £12million. Gutted I'll probably never get to own one! But I saw her last summer at the Liverpool Tate, and she can also be seen in the musee d'Orsay in Paris.

Christian Louboutin spring/summer 2009 ad campaign

Fashion ad campaigns are becoming much more than just photo shoot photography of skinny models in expensive clothes. This Spring/Summer, Christian Louboutin has launched a new campaign, resembling the artistic influence of the Baroque era. Peter Lippmann, the still life photographer behind the campaign, has taken inspiration from 17th-18th artworks, particularly painters of the Dutch Golden Age. The shoes have been arranged in still life to resemble classic paintings. I love the unique take on this fashion campaign as, although the style itself is not unique in the art culture, for fashion it is a very original angle. If I were to come up with this concept, particularly for fashion, I would worry that the old fashioned style would create similar impressions of the shoes. However, it has been carried out beautifully, and represents the brand of Christian Louboutin, and Baroque art beautifully.