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Seeing life in blue
Even if man has been using natural colorants – mineral, plant and animal – since the Paleolithic, he has long been making many pigments and dyes that involve more or less elaborate chemical syntheses. Reducing costs and inventing new dyeing principles, such are the objectives. The current diversity of colorants therefore owes much to the advances of chemistry over the centuries, true inspiration for new dyes for dyeing and new pigments for painting.
Blue is the favourite colour of Europeans, French in particular. From jeans to the flag of Europe, it is omnipresent. And blue pigments have always been in favour with painters. Here are some of the best known blues : indigo, pastel blue, ultramarine blue, Egyptian blue, azurite, Prussian blue, cobalt blue, phthalo blue, Klein blue.
Pastel : a lost tradition The pastel blue of dyers was extracted from woad, a plant cultivated in the South of France. The dyeing principle is identical to that of indigo. The latter’s arrival in the 17th century led to the decline of woad cultivation, which disappeared almost completely in the 19th century. A farmer from the French department of the Somme is trying to revive this tradition.
Laboratoire de photophysique et photochimie supramoléculaires et macromoléculaires, CNRS-ENS Cachan
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