SYMHC Classics: The Color Blue

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class: “Classics: The Color Blue”

Hosts: Tracy V. Wilson & Holly Fry
Live Show Venue: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Original Air Date: April 25, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging and humorous episode, Tracy and Holly explore the rich historical, linguistic, and cultural journey of the color blue. From its rarity in the ancient world – when many languages didn’t even have a word for it – to its subsequent explosion in popularity in art, textiles, and symbolism, the episode traces blue’s transformation from elusive marvel to favorite color worldwide. The hosts illuminate blue’s evolution through language, ancient technology, global trade, pigment discovery, and the social and economic consequences of blue dyes and paints.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Paradox of Blue’s Popularity and Historic Rarity

• Blue is the most popular color globally today (03:34).
  • Tracy cites a 2015 survey across many countries, showing blue’s popularity.
  • Yet, “a lot of ancient languages did not have a word for blue at all. Some languages still don’t.” (03:34, Tracy)
• Blue's relative scarcity in the natural world (apart from the sky and water) and the difficulty in making reliable blue dyes and pigments meant blue was once extremely rare and valuable.

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2. The Discovery of Blue (or Lack Thereof) in Language

• William Ewart Gladstone’s analysis of Homer (04:47–07:18):
  • Noted the lack of color words, especially blue, in Homer’s writing.
  • Homer’s usage of color terms was seen as “contradictory and frankly, just haphazard” (06:28, Holly).
  • Example: Descriptions of both blood and rainbows as “violet,” and the sea as “wine dark.”
  • Sparked scholarly debates about ancient color perception.
    • Did ancient people perceive colors differently or were their vocabularies merely limited?
• Academic studies on basic color terms (07:59–10:01):
  • Berlin and Kay’s research:
    • Languages typically gain blue as a basic color term only after black, white, red, yellow, and green.
    • Over 80% of languages follow this evolution pattern: black & white → red → yellow/green → blue.
    • Ancient languages often stopped with black, white, and red.

Notable quote:

• “In languages with six basic color terms, the sixth one is blue. And then from there, the pattern didn’t hold up much farther.” (08:35, Tracy)

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3. Is Color Perception Universal or Cultural?

• Ongoing research questions whether fewer color terms mean people perceive fewer colors.
  • “There are lots of questions that we don’t have 100% agreed upon answers to yet.” (10:56, Tracy)
• The hosts discuss the influence of Isaac Newton’s spectrum and the cultural/social construction of color categories.
• Symbolic meanings and pigment availability across time and societies influence perceptions and vocabulary.

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4. Making Blue: From Ancient Technology to Modern Science

a. Pigments & Paints

• Ancient Palette Dominated by Earthy Tones (17:17):

  • Brown, yellow, red, and black from readily available ochres and minerals.
  • Blue stones (like lapis lazuli) initially only used for carving, not paint.

• Egyptian Blue (18:43):

  • First synthetic pigment, by ~3100 BCE.
  • Recipe involved silica, copper, and calcium heated to 850–1000°C.
  • Used throughout Egypt and the Roman world. Notably, infrared luminescence can reveal remaining pigment traces today (20:02).

• Ultramarine from Lapis Lazuli (21:05):

  • Lapis sourced almost exclusively from one region (Pamir Mountains, Afghanistan).
  • Early attempts to use it as a pigment produced impure, variable results.
  • By the 6th century, a purification process created ultramarine, famously described by Cennino Cennini in the 14th/15th century.

  Memorable Recipe Excerpt (24:04):

  • “When the powder is prepared, procure from the druggist 6 ounces of resin of the pine, 3 ounces of mastic, and 3 ounces of new wax to each pound of lapis lazuli... This paste must be kept at least three days and three nights, kneading it a little every day…” (24:04, Holly)
  • “It is rather the art of maidens than of men to make it, because they remain continually in the house and are more patient and their hands more delicate. But beware of old women.” (26:52, Tracy quoting Cennini)

• Ultramarine’s Use and Symbolism (27:37):

  • Hugely expensive: “worth more than gold” (22:38, Holly).
  • Reserved for special subjects, e.g., the Virgin Mary.
  • Famous users: Raphael, Johannes Vermeer, who “spent enormous amounts of money on ultramarine and used it extensively everywhere.” (28:36, Holly & Tracy)

• Synthetic Blues:

  • Synthetic ultramarine (29:00, Holly): Developed in 19th century, prize awarded to Jean Baptiste Guimay in 1828.
  • Prussian blue (30:03, Holly): Discovered by accident in the early 1700s, soon revolutionized blue’s availability and use.
  • Other blues: Cobalt and cerulean blues entered common use in the 19th century.

  Anecdote:

  • “Instead of making the red dye that he was expecting, Diesbach wound up with a vivid blue.” (30:48, Tracy, on the accidental discovery of Prussian blue)

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b. Dyes & Textiles

• Ancient Blue Dyes:

  • Tekelet (techelet), from marine snails, cited in Jewish scripture.
  • Oldest indigo:
    • 6,200-year-old Peruvian cotton dyed with indigo (35:07, Holly).
    • Pre-Columbian Americas: indigo and other plants used for blue dyes; Navajo blue replaced by indigo from Mexico.

• Indigo Dye Process (Suriname example, 38:42):

  • “Kept in heaps for about 15 days to ferment... a violet or garter blue color, extracting all the grain or coloring matter from the plant” (37:08, Holly quoting Stedman)
  • Intensive, multi-step, labor-consuming process often performed by enslaved people.

  Memorable Moment:

  • “It’s a Lot of work.” (38:42, Tracy)
  • “Do we need the blue, though?” (38:47, Tracy, to laughs)

• Indigo in Global Trade:

  • Indigofera plants are widespread, but indigo was mainly associated with India, a key part of the spice trade.
  • Transported as hard, stone-like blocks that Europeans mistook for gemstones (39:15, Holly).

• Indigo vs. Woad in Europe:

  • Woad, a native European plant, was the primary blue dye before indigo’s arrival.
  • Indigo’s introduction (post-1498) caused trade disruptions; dyers’ guilds and governments sought to ban it to protect local industries and woad growers.
  • “Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II called it cheating, corrosive, devouring and diabolical.” (41:53, Tracy)
  • Queen Elizabeth I banned woad cultivation over concerns for food crop displacement.

• Colonial and Social Impact:

  • Britain’s colonization of India and expansion of indigo cultivation became entangled in colonial oppression, as Indian farmers were required to grow indigo (43:48, Holly).
  • In the Americas, indigo cultivation and processing were labor-intensive and relied on enslaved labor.
  • Eliza Lucas Pinckney's South Carolina indigo production relied on the skill and knowledge of enslaved workers (44:15, Tracy).

• Decline of Natural Indigo:

  • Synthetic indigo was developed in the late 19th century and replaced plant-based sources in the 20th century.

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5. Cultural and Artistic Consequences of Blue’s Proliferation

• The rise in blue’s popularity changed everything from textile trends to the organization of trades (e.g., weavers allowed to dye their own blue fabric).
• Manuals for dyers shifted from focusing on red to blue (pre-14th century, 75% were about red; from the 15th century onward, blue manuals overtook).
• Symbolic use of blue (especially in religious art) rose as blue dyes and pigments became more available.
• Apprentice dyers had to demonstrate mastery with blue dye, not red, by the 18th century.

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6. Other Notable Blue Artifacts and Uses

• There are numerous blue materials beyond dyes and paints that the episode did not explore in detail, including:
  • Blue glass and glazes (often cobalt-based)
  • Blue and white porcelain of China (Yuan and Ming dynasties) and its European imitations
  • Blue Jasperware (developed by Josiah Wedgwood)
• “We could have had a totally different look at the color blue today, rather than having the focus be on paints and dyes.” (45:16, Tracy)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the cultural construction of color:

  • “Colors just aren’t static, unchanging traits that exist all by themselves. Our understanding of colors is socially constructed, and the way people describe the colors around them can vary dramatically based on language and culture.” (12:27, Tracy)

• On making ultramarine:

  • “All of this pounding and grinding and straining and sifting was difficult because lapis lazuli is physically hard to pulverize. And this was also just the beginning.” (24:04, Holly)
  • “Beware of old women.” (26:52, Cennino Cennini, via Tracy)

• On indigo’s impact:

  • “As indigo dye became more available, guilds and governments in Europe had to negotiate a sudden shift in supply and demand…” (41:19, Holly)
  • “Indigo was one of the primary exports of what is now India. So as Britain colonized the Indian subcontinent, British colonial policies became tightly intertwined with the indigo industry, and this affected everything from human rights to the movement for India’s independence from Britain…” (43:48, Holly)

• Comic relief:

  • Tracy, after hearing how involved indigo production is: “Do we need the blue, though?” (38:47)
  • Holly (about being left out of pigment-making): “Yeah, I don’t think he’d be cool with me making his aquamarine or ultramarine, rather.” (27:37)

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Important Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | Notes | |-----------|----------------------------------|-------| | 03:34 | Why blue is so beloved—but rare historically | Survey stats, languages lacking word for blue | | 04:47 | Gladstone, Homer, and color vocabulary | Early findings about color perception | | 07:59 | Berlin & Kay’s research on color terms | Evolution of color words, blue’s late arrival | | 10:56 | Are colors universal or culturally constructed? | Ongoing research and open questions | | 17:17 | Making pigments: Earthy palette, blue's rarity | Early pigments and why blue was elusive | | 18:43 | Synthesis of Egyptian blue | First synthetic pigment, technology involved | | 21:05 | Lapis lazuli and ultramarine | Extraction challenges, recipes, symbolism | | 22:38 | Why ultramarine was more expensive than gold | Details on lapis lazuli processing | | 29:00 | Synthetic ultramarine introduced | Shift to accessible, affordable blue | | 30:03 | Prussian blue discovered accidentally | Pigment revolutionized blue’s availability | | 35:07 | Oldest known indigo dye (Peru, 6,200 years ago) | Prehistoric blue dye in the Americas | | 37:08 | Indigo processing in Suriname | Harsh realities, labor intensity | | 41:53 | Europe’s dye wars: indigo vs woad, trade disrupts | Economic shifts and regulatory battles | | 43:48 | Indigo and colonial exploitation | India and the Americas’ experiences | | 45:16 | Blue in glass, ceramics, and other arts | Many blue histories left untold |

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Tone & Language

The hosts maintain their trademark mix of scholarly curiosity and irreverent, witty banter. The narrative is accessible, engaging, and peppered with asides and laughter. Technical details (like pigment recipes) are offset with comic relief. The hosts skillfully balance history, science, and cultural studies in a way that’s compelling for listeners of all backgrounds.

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Recommended For

• Listeners interested in the intersection of history, language, science, and art
• Anyone curious why blue became the world’s favorite color—and why it used to be so rare
• Art and textile enthusiasts, or those interested in global trade and cultural exchange

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In sum:
This episode traces how blue went from a near-mythic rarity—so precious it was reserved for the finest art and most sacred figures—to a color so ubiquitous and loved that today, almost everyone claims it as a favorite. The story of blue is entwined with the advance of science, the evolution of language, the rise and fall of empires, and the complexities (and costs) of human longing for beauty.

Transcript

[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Happy Saturday. This week on Unearthed, we talked about Anatolia's oldest known indigo dyed textile. And that reminded me that once we did an entire episode about the history of the color blue, which of course talked about indigo as a die.

[Holly Fry]

This one is a live show that we did at the National Gallery of art in Washington, D.C. in September of 2019, and this episode came out on October 16, 2019.

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Enjoy.

[Holly Fry]

Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartradio.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Today we are sharing our live show from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, which we did in September as part of their NGA Nights programming.

[Holly Fry]

And we actually did this show twice over the course of the evening so that more people who attended that event, which is very popular, could get in and see it. And so today we are sharing the first of those two.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We're not going to share the second one because it would effectively be the exact same show. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Blue is my favorite color, and that makes me not special. Blue is the most popular color in a lot of the world. For example, there was a survey that was conducted in 2015 that cold people in Britain, Germany, the United States, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. And in all of those places, blue was the most popular color by a significant margin. So I am not alone in the world in my love of blue. It can also feel like we're really surrounded by blue all the time because we have the blue sky and the reflection of the sky in the water, and then things like blue jeans and then all the blue stuff that people buy because it's everyone's favorite color. And yet a lot of ancient languages did not have a word for blue at all. Some languages still don't. For a lot of human history, the process of making blue dyes and paints has been pretty prohibitively expensive and complicated, if people knew how to do it at all. So blue used to be really rare. And today we're going to talk about blue's progression from something that there wasn't even a name for because it was so rare, to something that seems really ubiquitous.

[Holly Fry]

And like Tracy just said, there were a lot of ancient languages that just had no word for blue whatsoever. And this is something that folks started figuring out thanks to William Ewart Gladstone, who spent four terms as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 1868 and 1894. But he had also studied classics at Oxford. And 10 years before he became Prime Minister, he published a 600 plus page book that was called Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age. And it had a whole section in it titled Homer's Perceptions and Use of Color.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I really like that. One of the jobs that you can have had before being prime minister is classicist. That seems cool.

[Holly Fry]

I feel like if we had more of that and less of other things, you'd be in great shape.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So in this section of the book, Gladstone outlined what he interpreted as signs of immaturity. That was one of his words for it. And Homer's ability to differentiate color. And here is what he said. One, the paucity of his colors. Two, the use of the same word to denote not only different hues or tints of the same color, but colors which, according to us, are essentially different. Three, the description of the same object under epithets of color, fundamentally disagreeing with one another. Four, the vast predominance of the most crude and elemental forms of color, black and white, over every other, and the decided tendency to treat other colors as simply intermediates between those two extremes. Five, the slight use of color in Homer as compared with other elements of beauty for the purposes of poetic effect and its absence in certain cases, we might confidently expect it.

[Holly Fry]

So in other words, Homer's use of color descriptor seemed kind of contradictory and frankly, just haphazard. Homer's works mostly referred to things as black or white and sometimes referred to the same object using different color descriptors at different times. Or he would describe things with strange colors, like he described both blood and a rainbow with a word that translates essentially as violet, or calling the sea wine dark, which I know maybe he got criticized for, but it sounds very poetic to me. Homer's writing also seems to have had no word that specifically meant blue. And side note, there is actually a lot of debate as well about whether all of the writing that is attributed to Homer now was really the work of one person or if there are multiple people involved, that all kind of fell under this umbrella.

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[Holly Fry]

and way outside the scope of what we're talking about tonight. But just keep that in mind as we talk about Homer's work.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, yeah. Regardless of whether Homer was one person or many people, this whole conversation led to some discussion about whether people in the Homeric age were colorblind or otherwise were perceiving color differently than cited people in the 19th century when Gladstone was writing. And we'll get back to that idea. This also led to further study about how ancient writers were describing and naming colors. And it quickly became clear that other ancient writings also had odd uses of color, including not having a word for the color blue.

[Holly Fry]

Researchers studied these language patterns for decades. And then in 1969, Brent Berlin and Paul Key published Basic Color Terms, Their Universality and Evolution. And basic color terms are essentially single words that can be applied to a wide range of objects and are understood by most native speakers of a given language. So in English, for example, there are all kinds of words describing different shades and hues, but there are actually only 11 basic color terms, and those are red, yellow, green, blue, black, white, gray, orange, brown, pink, and thank goodness, purple.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

One of the important things about basic color terms is that there's an agreed on shade that they are describing. So even though violet was one of the words that Homer was using, like the fact that it was sort of being applied to seemingly random objects would mean that that wasn't really functioning as a basic color word or a basic color term. All the languages that Berlin and Kay studied had a minimum of two basic color terms, black and white, sometimes described as light and dark. And here is something that I think it's really cool. In languages that had three basic color terms, the third one was red. In languages with four, the fourth one was either yellow or green. And then the other of those was the fifth one in languages that had five. It's only when a language had six basic color terms that it had a color term for blue. And then from there, the pattern didn't hold up much farther. There was brown as the seventh color, and then colors beyond that just followed in no particular order.

[Holly Fry]

This 1969 work had studied a relatively small group of bilingual people, all of whom spoke English, and most of them lived in industrial areas. And this naturally led to a lot of discussion and questions about whether these results could really be considered universal. So in the late 1970s, Berlin and Kay started working on their World Color Survey, which asked more than 2,500 native speakers of unwritten languages around the world to identify various colors.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Berlin and Kay published a monograph on this in July of 2009, and they reported that more than 80% of the world's languages followed this pattern of black and white, and then red, and then yellow or green, and then the other one of those, and then blue. And these ancient languages without a word for blue seemed to follow these same patterns. A lot of them have the black, white, and red, and that's it.

[Holly Fry]

Sounds like my wedding. Not at all like game of Thrones and way before that. There has been a lot of research since then into why this pattern actually exists and how to interpret all of this information. And there's also been research into whether that pattern is evidence that ancient people saw fewer colors, like William Ewart Gladstone suggested, as well as whether people living today, whose languages have fewer color terms, are actually perceiving fewer colors, or if they're perceiving them differently.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So a lot of that research is really contradictory and inconclusive. There are lots of questions that we don't have 100% agreed upon answers to yet, like are there physiological differences in the eyes or brains of people who speak languages that include different numbers of basic color terms? There's some research that suggests yes and other research that suggests no. If there are physiological differences, are those differences a result of the language differences, or is it the other way around? How much of this is physiological? How much is socially constructed? Are colors, as sighted people, perceive them, universal, or are they relative?

[Holly Fry]

And it might seem a little bit weird that there are so many unanswered questions about colors, because it's really easy to imagine that colors are unchanging physical traits. I know a purple looks like it's purple, but it's true. There's an element of physics to all of this. Isaac Newton started working with the visible spectrum of light in the 1660s, and he used a prism to refract sunlight into a spectrum that he described as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. But before this, societies around the world had their own ideas about what light was made of and where colors came from. And even Newton's work, which became the foundation of how we all talk about color and light, was influenced by his own preconceived ideas. For example, the reason that there is an indigo in his list is because he just thought there needed to be seven colors.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yes, there's seven days of the week, seven notes at a musical scale. Seven's like an auspicious number. Clearly, there have to be seven colors. So, in other words, colors just aren't static, unchanging traits that exist all by themselves. Our understanding of colors is socially constructed, and the way people describe the colors around them can vary dramatically based on language and culture. Societies give colors their own symbolic meanings, and those meanings change and evolve over time in response to all kinds of factors, including what pigments are available, how expensive those pigments are, whether there were laws about how they could be used, and what's in fashion at the moment.

[Holly Fry]

So when we look back into colors in the Past this can, of course, get really complicated. An ancient culture may have had no word for blue, and if they did, it might have been used for a different range of shades than an English speaker living today might imag. And even if we have examples of that culture's physical objects, like jewelry or textiles or works of art, their colors can change over time, thanks to things like fading and oxidation and just dirt getting on them. And exactly how they fade and shift can really vary depending on what an object is made of, what pigment was used to color it, the binders that were used with those pigments, how it was handled since then, and what pollutants have been in the air and on and on. There are so many factors.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

On top of all of that, when we look at a work of art, especially a work of art that was made long ago in the past, we are almost certainly seeing it under totally different lighting conditions than the artist who than the artist who created had when they were making it.

[Holly Fry]

And one of the hypotheses for why so many ancient languages did not have a word for blue is that they just didn't need one. Most ancient cultures did not have a way to make blue pigment. And while there is blue in nature, of course, thanks to things like flowers and berries and butterflies and birds and the sky, it's not nearly as common as other colors are. And we're going to talk about how people worked out a way to make their own blue after we first pause for what will be a little sponsor break.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

We're going to talk a bit about paints and pigments. If you look at some Paleolithic rock art and cave art, you will notice a pretty similar use of color no matter where in the world you're looking. Because the palette tends to be really earthy. There's lots of brown and yellow and red and black, and there are naturally occurring pigments that produce these colors and are pretty abundant in a lot of the world, like ochre, which is made from iron oxide, and various earthy materials. Different cultures have had their own ceremonial and symbolic methods of preparing and using these pigments, but basically you can really just grind up some rocks and put water in there and paint with it.

[Holly Fry]

Did you ever have a teacher, like an art teacher? Have you do that?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I think so. Probably.

[Holly Fry]

I've done a lot. You can't really do that with blue, though. It turns out there are not many blue minerals, and the ones that do exist typically cannot just be crushed and mixed with water like you could do with ochre mashing up blueberries or blue flowers might seem like a great idea, and you could try to use that and paint with it, but it's actually usually going to turn out kind of brownish or gray, and often it's also going to fade really quickly, so you're going to lose that blue color you were chasing. And ancient peoples could carve objects out of blue stones or minerals or shells, or make decorative objects with feathers, but that was about it. Even substances like lapis lazuli, which were eventually made into pigments, were first used just primarily to make carvings and inlays, rather than actually trying to use them as dyes or paints.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So that changed with the development of the first synthetic pigment, which happened by about 3,100 BCE that came to be known as Egyptian blue. And according to Roman writer Vitruvius, it was made from sand, copper, and natron, which is a naturally occurring sodium carbonate compound. Modern experiments have pinpointed the likely ingredients as silica, copper, and calcium. Usually, the silica probably came from sand, and the calcium came from limestone, although it was also possible for sand to include calcite or flecks of limestone itself. So these ingredients had to be mixed with a small amount of alkali and then be heated to between 850 and 1000 degrees Celsius. And when we were running through this script earlier today, I went, is that right? That seems incredibly hot. And I was in my hotel room as we were getting ready, confirming it with, like, five different sources. Yes, it was that hot, which just

[Holly Fry]

seems like it would all be on fire to me. But that's why I'm not a scientist. We don't really know who worked out this recipe or what their process was for figuring it out. We don't know if it was an accidental discovery or if it was the result of a more methodical process to try to get to this, this final result. It may have been developed even outside of Egypt, possibly in Mesopotamia.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, it could have been anywhere on a spectrum between, like, the kids threw some sand in the kiln to. I'm gonna figure this out. Like, no idea. A lot of room. Egyptian blue was used in Egyptian art from its discovery until the end of the Roman era. And there is still a lot of artwork that exists today that was made with it. The blue coloring isn't necessarily visible on all of it, though. In 2009, it was discovered that Egyptian blue has a near infrared luminescence that can help researchers find traces of it that aren't visible to the naked eye anymore. So about that same time, conservation scientists used that discovery to confirm that there are traces of Egyptian blue on the Parthenon marbles.

[Holly Fry]

And we have artwork where we can see this pigment that is at least 3,000 years old. And the pigment itself has held up. The binders that have been used with it have not always fared as well, though. For example, pieces that used a lot of gum arabic as a binder have tended to blacken or turn green over time.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The Egyptian term for Egyptian blue translates to artificial lapis lazuli. And the next pigment we're going to talk about is ultramarine, which was made out of lapis lazuli. Lapis lazuli is a metamorphic rock that's found primarily in one place in the Eastern Hemisphere, and that's the Pamir Mountains in Central Asia. People in what's now Afghanistan were mining lapis as early as 7,000 BCE, and by 3,500 BCE, it was being carried thousands of miles along trade routes through Asia and Europe and Africa.

[Holly Fry]

And as we said earlier, the first uses of lapis lazuli were mostly to make carved objects and inlays. Although lapis could be crushed into powder and used as a pigment, that pigment was not very pure because lapis is made up of a mixture of different minerals. And these minerals, depending on what their concentrations were, would all affect the final color. So if there were impurities present, and again, those concentrations, different lapis preparations could look completely different from one another, and then they would also look completely different over time. People still tried it, though. There is evidence of lapis being used as a paint in the Karnak temple complex in Egypt.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

By about the 6th century, though, people had worked out how to purify lapis lazuli into a pure blue pigment, now known as ultramarine. Unlike with Egyptian blue, we do have the recipe for this one. Artist and writer Tonnino Cennini, who lived between about 1370 and 1440, wrote the process down in a lot of detail.

[Holly Fry]

And you may have heard that ultramarine was worth more than gold. And Cennino Cennini's method really illustrates why it wasn't just because lapis lazuli was only being mined in one area of Afghanistan at the time. The process was also long and really complicated, and it yield a very small amount of usable pigment.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So here's how he described it in his book of art. First, take some lapis lazuli, and if you would know how to distinguish the best stones, take those which contain most of the blue color, for it is mixed with what is like ashes, that which contains least of this ash pigment is best, but be careful that you do not mistake it for azuro della magna, which is beautiful to the eye as enamel.

[Holly Fry]

Azuro della magna is azurite, which is copper carbonate material that was being used to make blue pigments during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, although it was hard to mine, and it was also tricky to work with. But it was cheaper than ultramarine, although it was not as stable or vibrant as a pigment.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So, going back to the recipe, once you've got your lapis lazuli, you pound it in a bronze mortar, covered so that the dust doesn't just fly out. You grind it and you strain it and you sift it and you pound it again as much as is required. But bear in mind that though, that though the more you grind, the more finely powdered the O0 will be, yet it will not be so beautiful and rich and deep in color.

[Holly Fry]

And all of this pounding and grinding and straining and sifting was difficult because lapis lazuli is physically hard to pulverize. And this was also just the beginning. He went on to write, quote, when the powder is prepared, procure from the druggist 6 ounces of resin of the pine, 3 ounces of mastic, and 3 ounces of new wax to each pound of lapis lazuli. Put all these ingredients into a new pipkin and melt them together. Then take a piece of white linen and strain these things into a glazed basin. Then take a pound of the powder of lapis lazuli, mix it all well together into a paste, and that you may be able to handle the paste. Take linseed oil and keep your hands always well anointed with this oil. This paste must be kept at least three days and three nights, kneading it a little every day. And remember that you may keep it for 15 days or a month or as long as you please. I like how it's like three days, but, like, forever's cool.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

Also, it's not lapis lazuli yet, or it's not ultramarine yet. You still need to extract the pigment from the paste that you just made and left from between three days and forever. You do this by putting the paste in a glazed basin, quote, with a porringer full of lye, moderately warm, and then you work that with two rounded wooden sticks. So he describes this quote, with these two sticks, one in each hand, turn and squeeze and knead the paste thoroughly, exactly in the manner that you would need bread Now I need to take a minute. I've never used sticks to knead bread.

[Holly Fry]

I'm picturing someone just poking at it,

[Tracy V. Wilson]

like even in a bread machine. It's a paddle. Okay, so sticks as you would need bread. When you see that the lye is thoroughly blue, pour it into a glazed basin. Take the same quantity of fresh lye, pour it over the paste, and work it with the sticks as before. When this lye is very blue, pour it into another glazed basin and continue to do so for several days until the paste no longer tinges the lye. Then throw it away, for it is good for nothing.

[Holly Fry]

Hey, guess what? You still don't have ultramarine yet. The substance in each of these basins will be a different shade of blue depending on when in the process you filled it. And you need to combine them together based on how many shades of ultramarine you are trying to make. You have to be careful when you're doing this. The basins that were filled first are the best quality. And quote, the last two extracts are worse than ashes. May your eyes therefore be experienced so as not to spoil the good azure by mixing it with the bad. And each day remove the lye that the azure may dry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So from there, Cennini offers some advice about what to do if none of your ultramarine has the beautiful deep color that you're expecting. And essentially, that's mixing it with a little bit of crimson dye and allowing that all to dry again. Then, once you have your finished ultramarine, we get to the part of this that is the unexpected sexism moment of the show. Put it into a skin or purse and rejoice in it, for it is good and perfect. And bear in mind that it is a rare gift to know how to make it well. And you must know that it is rather the art of maidens than of men to make it, because they remain continually in the house and are more patient and their hands more delicate. But beware of old women.

[Holly Fry]

I'm just out here ruining your aquamarine. Yeah, I don't think he'd be cool with me making his aquamarine or ultramarine, rather. Ultramarine is beautiful and expensive and rare. So during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it was mostly used by the most skilled, respected artists and artisans. Some artists would try to make it stretch by saving their ultramarine for their last final touches on whatever work they were making. And others used ultramarine only on subjects that seemed worthy of it. And this is when blue started to take on a symbolic meaning, such as the color of the Virgin Mary's. Clothing. And you can also see an example of this here in the National Gallery of Art in Raphael's the Album Madonna, which was created in about 1510. That is on view in Gallery 20 of the main floor of the West Building. That is the other building from where we are tonight. That is a very good reason for you to come back to this amazing place.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, don't try to go over there. Right now. That building is closed.

[Holly Fry]

You get in all the trouble.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Some artists, though, they did neither of these things to try to conserve it or make it stretch. An example is Johannes Vermeer, who just spent enormous amounts of money on ultramarine and used it extensively everywhere. The Vermeers are in Gallery 50A of the West Building also. Still the other building. Spectacular.

[Holly Fry]

They are beautiful. I get the vapors overseas.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

You can see them on the Internet also.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah. Thanks to its colossal expense and rarity, people were really eager for some kind of substitute for ultramarine. It needed to be equally good quality, but also cheaper and easier to get. In 1824, the French Society for the Encouragement of National Industry offered a prize of 6,000 francs to whoever figured out an industrial process to make synthetic ultramarine. And it also had to cost less than 300 francs a kilogram. And there were two competing claims on this prize, which was ultimately awarded to Jean Baptiste Guimay in 1828. And that is made from kaolin, sodium carbonate, bitumen and sulfur, prepared and heated in a furnace or kiln.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So once there was this widely available, much less expensive blue pigment, the color blue became way more common in artwork and for more mundane topics a lot of the time. By the start of the Impressionist movement, most painters were working in synthetic ultramarine rather than made from lapis lazuli. And then we get all those beautiful monets that are all full of blue everywhere.

[Holly Fry]

To be clear, ultramarine was not the only blue pigment that was in use at this point. Cobalt blue was introduced in 1802 and cerulean blue in the 1860s. Prussian blue had been developed back at the start of the 1700s, quite by accident. There is some fuzziness as to the details about. But the conventional story is that an alchemist named Johann Conrad Dippel was working with potash and animal blood. And Johann Jakob Diesbach was a dye maker who used potash as part of making a red dye. And Diesbach ran out and he either bought or borrowed some from Dippel. And it was the potash that had been adulterated with animal blood. And because of this, instead of making the red dye that he was expecting. Diesbach wound up with a vivid blue.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I like to imagine that he was like, he won't notice if I just take some of it. I'll give it why is this blue now? Dippel used his knowledge of chemistry to work out how to replicate Dies Bach's results. And then another man, Johann Leonard Frisch, also claims to have invented this in a letter to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1715. Although these men tried to keep their recipe a secret so they could cash in on the incredibly lucrative blue pigment trade, John Woodward published a method of making it in 1724. So any everybody could make as much as they wanted.

[Holly Fry]

And the development of Prussian blue, also sometimes called Berlin blue, affected the use of blue in artwork much the way that synthetic ultramarine did. For example, it led to a whole style of woodblock prints in Japan called Aizurie. Those were printed mostly or entirely in blue, and these prints made use of Prussian blue as well as indigo and other blue pigments. And a particularly famous example is Katsushika Hokusai's 36 Views of Mount Fuji that includes the Great Wave off Konagawa. And the first prints of this series were all in blue, and blue is really prominent in the rest of them that are not those first ones that are 100% blue.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah, I love that whole series. And hey, we just mentioned indigo, which means that's a good segue into talking about the mysteries of blue dyes, which we're gonna do after another quick break.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

Learn [e-mail] want to keep up with everything trendy?

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[Robert Smigel]

another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy not quite on Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Garrett to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier this week, my guest SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an acapella band with their between songs banter. Who's the worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah, me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The Yarn Bird, right? That's the name.

[Robert Smigel]

The Harvard Yard. But they're open.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

We're open.

[Robert Smigel]

Since you guys are middle aged. One erection. Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Humor me.

[Robert Smigel]

I need some jokes to make me seem funny.

[Superhuman Podcast Narrator]

Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the Enhanced Games. Some call it grotesque, others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.

[Superhuman Podcast Narrator]

Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In a lot of the world, the oldest surviving examples of dyed textiles are dyed red. But blue dye has been around for a pretty long time as well. One example is Tekelet, which is which is mentioned repeatedly in Jewish scripture and was in use at least 3,500 years ago. Knowledge of how to make it was lost in sometime after the Romans destroyed the second Temple in Jerusalem, and today its source is believed to be a secretion made by marine snails.

[Holly Fry]

Other blue dyes are even older. In 2016, researchers announced that they had dated a piece of cotton textile found in Huaca, Peru, and found that it was 6200 years old. It had been dyed with indigo, making it the oldest known use of indigo dye and one of the oldest surviving cotton textiles. And there were other blue dyes in the Americas as well. For example, there is evidence that the Navajo Nation had a natively produced blue plant dye, which was eventually replaced with indigo that was introduced from further south in what is now Mexico.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So today indigo is more often associated with what's now India. But the plant genus Indigofera includes hundreds of flowering plants that live in tropical and subtropical areas all around the world, and a lot of them can and have been used to make purple and blue dyes. Indigo has been used to make paints as well. For example, Maya blue was used as a paint in pre colonial Mesoamerica and that was made from indigo and a clay called palygorskite and at least one other ingredient whose. Or at least one other ingredient whose identity is still a little bit debated.

[Holly Fry]

And as another example of usage, Peter Paul Rubens used both ultramarine and indigo in the fall of Phaeton, which is here at the National Gallery of Art in the West Buildings, Gallery 45. Melanie Gifford, who is a research conservator here, described his process in painting this to us in an email. She said Rubens used indigo paint indigo to paint the sky while working on the painting in Italy in 1604. And then when he revised the painting in Antwerp a few years later, he switched to the brighter ultramarine.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So when it comes to making dye, the historical details of how the plants were processed and how the dye was used could really vary based on where the indigo was being grown. Often the steps had a cultural or religious significance, and regardless of the specifics, it tended to be a pretty involved process that required a whole lot of plant material to make a very small amount of dye.

[Holly Fry]

And as an example here is how indigo was processed in Suriname, as described by John Gabriel Stedman. When all the verdure is cut off, the whole crop is tied in bunches and put into a very large tub with water covered over with very heavy logs of wood by way of pressers. Thus kept, it begins to ferment. In less than 18 hours the water seems to boil and becomes of a violet or garter blue color, extracting all the grain or coloring matter from the plant. In this situation the liquor is drawn off into another tub, which is something less when the remaining trash is carefully picked up and thrown away, and the very noxious smell of this refuse it is that occasions the peculiar unhealthiness which is always incident to this business being now in the second tub, the mash is agitated by paddles adapted for the purpose, not just pokey sticks, till by a skillful maceration, all the grain separates from the water, the first sinking like mud to the bottom, while the latter separates, while the latter appears clear and transparent on the surface. This water being carefully removed till near the colored mass, the remaining liquor is drawn off into a third tub to let what indigo it may contain also settle in the bot, after which the last drops of water here being also removed, the sediment or indigo is put into proper vessels to dry, where being divested of its last remaining moisture and formed into small round and oblong square pieces, it has become a beautiful dark blue and fit for exportation.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It's a Lot of work.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

All these. I'm like, do we. Do we need the blue, though?

[Holly Fry]

I know I would be. I'd be like any other color. I'm out. I can't.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Fortunately, today we have chemistry and chemists do these things rather than having. I mean, you can still mash a lot of plants and get indigo dye. People do that, some of them for fun. As a cool side note, when you dye something with true indigo made from indigo plants, it is green when it comes out of the vat, and then it turns blue while it's exposed to the air.

[Holly Fry]

Magic chemistry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It looks really cool.

[Holly Fry]

Indigo was being cultivated in the Indian subcontinent by 2000 BCE, and Indigo became an important part of the spice trade. During processing, the plant's leaves were pulverized into a paste and the extracted dye was shaped into blocks and dried. And these resulting blocks were so stone like that when they arrived in Europe, people actually assumed that they were some kind of stone similar to lapis.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Indigo wasn't that common in Europe until after an Indian navigator led Vasco da Gama to a sea route to the Indian subcontinent in 1498. And before that point, Woad was more commonly used as a blue dye in Europe. This was also known as pastel. That can make reading old dye manuals a little confusing for people who aren't familiar with that term being used in that way, rather than for crayons made out of powdery pigment or light colors.

[Holly Fry]

Woad is also a flowering plant that requires an involved process to be made into a dye. Ethel M. Merritt's A Book on Vegetable Dyes, which was published in 1919, described it this way. Quote, the leaves, when cut, are reduced to a paste, kept in heaps for about 15 days to ferment, and formed into balls which are dried in the sun. These balls are subjected to a further fermentation of nine weeks before being used by the dyer.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Seems less complicated, but also nine weeks of further fermentation.

[Holly Fry]

Well, it could be forever.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So it could be forever. When indigo became more accessible in Europe after 1498, it really upended the dye industry. This was at a time when various crafts and trades are being regulated through the guild system. In a lot of Europe, dyer's guilds had very strong opinions about this sudden availability of indigo dye. Although processing the indigo plants into a dye was very difficult and time consuming, it was getting to Europe ready to use, rather than people in Europe having to be the ones to make it ready to use. The resulting dye was also a lot easier to work with than woad and it made a better quality blue overall.

[Holly Fry]

As indigo dye became more available, guilds and governments in Europe had to negotiate a sudden shift in supply and demand. Blue had already been increasing in popularity as people had gotten better at processing woad into a good quality dye. But then with this influx of indigo, more people wanted blue cloth for everything from clothing to coats of ar. And it got to the point that in places where dyeing and weaving had been completely different trades governed by totally different guilds, weavers started to be allowed to dye their own cloth, but only if they were dyeing it blue.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Meanwhile, indigo was being banned in various parts of Europe as dyers tried to protect their trade and regions whose economies depended on growing and processing, woad tried to protect their livelihoods. Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II published an edict against Indigo in 1577 in which he called it cheating, corrosive, devouring and diabolical. Seems pretty harsh. Indigo was prohibited in parts of France and Germany in 1598 and in Saxony in 1650. And then Rome prohibited the use of indigo throughout Italy in 1652.

[Holly Fry]

I kind of agree with Rudolph II. I just. Indigo's not for me. I don't. No shade to anybody that loves indigo. I'm just kidding. It's fine. It shouldn't be illegal. On the other hand, Queen Elizabeth I banned the cultivation of woad in England in 1585, although people disparagingly say that this was an issue because she thought it smelled bad. What this was really about was being motivated by fears that food crops were being displaced by this newly cultivated and lucrative woad.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So these laws didn't stop the spread of indigo into Europe or the rise of blue as a popular color in textiles and art, both because of the availability of indigo and because of the introductions of those blue pigments that we had talked about earlier. Before the 14th century, about 75% of the dyeing manuals in Europe had been about the color red. And then blue became more and more common in these manuals from the 15th through the 18th centuries, with the increased availability of indigo and other blue pigments, and eventually blue overtook red. And apprentice dyers, when they did their masterpiece to show that they were ready to practice their craft on their own, had to do their masterpiece in blue dye rather than red.

[Holly Fry]

The consequences of this skyrocketing popularity of indigo blue in Europe were far reaching. Indigo was one of the primary exports of what is now India. So as Britain colonized the Indian subcontinent, British colonial policies became tightly intertwined with the indigo industry, and this affected everything from human rights to the movement for India's independence from Britain, as farmers who were forced to grow indigo demanded to be allowed to grow food crops instead.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And then, on the total other side of the planet, indigo became a major crop in parts of the Americas where it was being grown and harvested and processed by enslaved laborers. The description that we read earlier on how indigo was being processed in Suriname actually came from a book that was titled Narrative of five years Expedition against the revolted Negroes of Suriname, and that recounted Stedman's experiences in Suriname from 1772 to 1777. In much of the Caribbean, indigo was later replaced by sugarcane, and it became a major cash crop in South Carolina, where it was introduced by Eliza Lucas Pinkney. Pinckney relied on the knowledge and skill of enslaved laborers to refine how the indigo there was being cultivated and processed.

[Holly Fry]

And synthetic indigo was developed in the late 19th century, but it wasn't until the early 20th century that it really just became super practical to make. Today, synthetic indigo is almost entirely. Has almost entirely replaced indigo that is made from plant sources.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And there are just so many other notable uses of blue that we could talk about in this show today. We haven't at all touched on blue glass or blue ceramics. There's the cobalt that was used to make. That was used to make blue glass and glazes, or the blue and white porcelain that was so popular in China during the Yuan and Ming dynasties, or the many attempts to try to replicate that look that were made in Europe and North America. There is blue Jasper ware that was developed by Josiah Wedgwood. If we had taken a different focus, we could have had a totally different look at the color blue today, rather than having the focus be on paints and dyes. And that's the mysteries of the color blue. So thank you to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, for inviting us to be here tonight.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, it's been such a delight. And we get to do it all again in a minute. Yeah.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So we especially wanted thank Sherry Williams, who is the manager of community programming, and Christina Brown, who's publicist. And then Melanie Gifford and Chelsea Souza, who were the people that we talked to in advance of tonight. And then we also want to thank the folks that we have been working with tonight. So Kathleen walking around with us a lot. Yep.

[Holly Fry]

Taking care of us. Robert, who's here in the front, took great care of us leading up to this.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And then I think Olivia's back in

[Holly Fry]

the back doing sound, making me not sound like a cackling Henry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So thanks so much everyone for coming.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah,

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is historypodcastheartradio.com and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

I love eggs. I turn to them all the time as a quick and easy way to start a meal. And Vital Farms eggs are brought to you by hens that have access to fresh air and sunshine and you can actually look up on the carton and see the farm that those eggs came from. Vit Vital Farms is also a certified B corporation with a purpose to improve the lives of people, animals and the planet through food. Look for the black egg carton in the egg aisle and visit vitalpharms.com to learn more. Vital Good Eggs no shortcuts Liberty Mutual

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Robert Smigel]

Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy not quite on Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman Pelt Paul make you funnier. This week my guests SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an acapella band with their between songs banter.

[Holly Fry]

Where does your group perform?

[Robert Smigel]

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.