An Anecdotal History of Blue

About this time last year, I shared with you some observations on an exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery called "Colour after Klein." The eponymous artist of this show was, of course, Yves Klein—painter, performance artist (after a fashion) and self-proclaimed Rosicrucian in the modern era. Among Klein's most famous claims was that the sky was his greatest work of art. Perhaps to this effect, Klein patented a shade of blue (called IKB or International Klein Blue) that is not unlike the incredible skies over Lisbon, Portugal.



If I do say so myself, the brilliant sunlight reflecting off the monastery of San Jeronimos (whose profuse ornamentation suggests the effects of Monet's studies of Rouen cathedral) only serves to accentuate the nameless azure in the upper left-hand corner of the photograph above.



Now, while not even Old Ken would be so bold as to cite these environmental effect as its cause, the popularity of blue and white tiles in the greater Lisbon area is striking. As opposed to the discrete tiles frequently set into kitchen interiors in the Netherlands or the English tradition of culinary "Willow-ware," Portugese blue and white ceramics can be found in churches and set in to walls—designed on a large scale so as to represent ambitious figural scenes. Since both these Northern and Southern traditions seem to have taken their inspiration from their varying contacts with East Asia, they might equally be submitted to a larger history of Chinoiserie. But, of course, our subject here is but an anecdotal history of blue.



In any case, a truly amazing collection of these azure treasures is to be found at the Museu Nacional do Azulejo on the southeastern outskirts of Lisbon. This modern museum has incorporated the late medieval Madre de Deus Convent, which itself featured numerous tiled murals (as can be seen just in the lower right corner of the phtograph above).



However, my favorite example from this collection was a polychrme specimen from Lisbon ca. 1650 entitled "The Leopard Hunt." As three hunters approach from the righthand side of the picture plane, we see four leopards inspecting the traps set for them.



What is particularly enchanting, though, is the depicted use of a mirror inside the trap. Is this to lure in the leopard? Or is the bewitching spectacle of his polychrome world rendered in the blue and white vocabulary of the mirror simply enough to leave him transfixed while the hunters attack from the bushes? Surely, such questions need to be addressed if we are to understand the desire to see the world not in black and white, but in azulejo e branco.