Blue: Cobalt Beauty

This is a series all about blue. What is it and why we love it? The images accompanying the text are microscopic shots, taken of my glaze tests. I've found this perspective really helps me to focus in and investigate the material, revealing new details I've never seen. Hopefully by understanding blue a little better, we can understand our own pale, blue dot a little better.

“She found Helen in her room,

weaving a large cloth, a double purple cloak,

creating pictures of the many battle scenes

between horse-taming Trojans and bronze-clad Achaeans,

wars they suffered for her sake “

The Illiad

Homer

Blue. The colour of the rich, the heavenly, the unclouded. Blue, one of the three primary colours in the holy trinity, we call visible light. Blue is the most detached and least material of all the hues. Its link to the limitless, unreachable sky connects it to the divine. The cults of the Virgin Mary fetishsized her purity by displaying her in sky-blue robes. Vishnu, the maintaining force of the universe is wrapped in a blue skin, his infinite power linked the ever-reaching sky he protects. Amun's, the Egyptian god of sun and air, blue complexion ties him to the heavenly skies he resides. Blue it special.

On the land it's rare, blue is so sparse that in many languages blues and greens have colexfied into one unanimous word. Arabic, Tibetan, Japanese are all lexicons that lack such specificity as too give blue it's own category. Persian though, Persian has 6-7 words of blue, this ancient language describes the glow of rain-clouds as turquoise stones and the rings of our eyes as lapiz rocks.

The silk road trade routes of the middle ages spread religion, disease and the love of blue. Persia became the worlds exporter of the finest cobalt. A metal mineral that when fired flashes into a rich deep hue. The Chinese branded this new pigment of choice as “Islamic blue”. For one pound of cobalt a Chinese trader would hand over three pounds of gold. Islamic blue and Chinese porcelain fused together to become the defining image we think of as “fine-china”. The purest clays of Jingdezhen paired with the most vibrant pigments of Persia. Only the greatest skilled, surgeon-like hands were trusted to decorate with this divine material. The blue, chemical flare wrapped each translucent, white vessel; a pairing so vibrant it demanded your attention. In this golden age of ceramics every pot burned with glorified beauty.


For centuries China honed their expertise in design and practice, their ceramics eventually becoming the desire of the worlds elites. Hungry consumer base grew, swelling the corporations that could help get their fix. Fueled by greed and a unrelenting appetite these companies gorged themselves on China's finest ceramics. Being left with a hefty tab, the Europeans payed the bill with deadly opiates. Drowning in a sea of addiction China tried to go cold turkey on it's smack addiction, banning the trade of poppies. But, like a abusive drug dealer, the British replied with violence and blackmail forcing their client to keep their addiction. Bullied and bruised China had to accept it's fate when looking down the barrels of a flotilla of British warships. China was never the same after the opium wars. It's ports and national borders were violated and wedged open for the world. China has lost its agency and England had secure it's commodities. The sleeping tiger Napoleon had warned about, just had it's legs amputate, its claws removed, its body taxidermied and carcass sold to the highest bidder.

China saw the beauty of blue. They honed their craft and their artistry producing an aesthetic that people didn't know they wanted, but then needed. The trade bloated the treasuries of Emperors and investment firms. The world clawed to get the newest, the finest, the most ostentatious fine-china they could exhibit. Blue was in fashion in Europe now, a trend that drove styles and market forces. China produced a beauty and quality that no-one could truly replicate. But with such beauty came lust and jealously. The British squirmed with anger, coveting their far-neighbors treasures. With a fleet spewing gunpowder and violence they took what they saw as theirs. This story of trade started on the backs of silk road camels and ended on the Cannons of British Gunboats.


Helen of Troy's beauty is said to have launched 1000 ships. How many ships I wonder have launched for the blue, beauty of Chinese Porcelain?