Blue. A History Of The Color As Deep As The Sea And As Wide As The Sky by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond

Blue explores the history of the colour blue asking where the colour came from and describing how the colour we know today came to be.

The earliest known record of the colour blue comes from the gorgeous rock, lapis lazuli, a deep blue metamorphic rock. It was mined in Afghanistan as early as 4500 B.C. Lapis lazuli was used in jewelry. 

It was Queen Cleopatra VII who was known for wearing a bluish mixture around her eyes, made with a mixture of lapis lazuli and other ingredients.

However, through the centuries dyers and merchants continued to look for easier and cheaper methods of creating the colour blue. One myth holds that a dog on the seashore snatched up a snail which turned his mouth a purple-blue. This turned out to be very labour intensive and just difficult to produce. 

As a result the colour blue was considered a holy colour, only to be used for special items such as the the blue drapes in King Solomon's temple or the colouring of the robe of the Blessed Virgin Mary,

Eventually, people discovered other, easier ways to produce the colour blue. One such person was the scientist Adolf von Baeyer who would be awarded the 1905 Nobel Prize for creating a chemical blue. 

Discussion

Blue is a fascinating account of history of the  colour blue, written for children but equally interesting for readers of all ages.  Brew-Hammond takes readers through the earliest known beginning with the Ancient Egyptians to the present day. It's a history most people do not know about what is arguably everyone's favourite colour!

The history of the colour blue is filled with many fascinating facts, including some that this picture book doesn't touch on. For example, the Greeks and Romans did not have a word to describe the colour blue and the colour was not found in their descriptions of rainbows. However, we know they used the colour in clothing and paintings because of archeological evidence. We also know the Ancient Egyptians used the colour blue as Brew-Hammond describes in her picture book, but we also know that they loved the gem, turquoise and that they created blue by mixing silica, lime, copper and alkali.

In the Middle Ages, blue became the colour of the nobility mainly because it was expensive to produce. During this time period, it extracted from the leaves of the woad plant, Isatis tinctoria. This meant that artists during the Renaissance used the pigment for important subjects in their paintings such as the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Eventually other shades of blue were developed such as ultramarine and indigo, to be used in porcelain and clothing. Ultramarine was developed from lapis lazuli while the indigo colour came from the indigo plant, Indigo fera. Today's denim, a fabric dyed with indigo, evolved from the original fabric produced in Genoa, Italy in the 17th century, copied in Nimes, France and eventually used by Levi Strauss in the United States in 1873.

Brew-Hammond's informative text, which covers some other interesting facts about blue, not mentioned here, is accompanied by the lush, vibrant illustrations of painter/illustrator/art educator, David Minter. The artist created the illustrations using "layers of acrylic wash on heavy watercolor paper."

The back matter includes an Author's Note about the colour blue, A Few Blue Facts and a list of Selected Sources.

Book Details:

Blue. A History Of The Color As Deep As The Sea and As Wide As The Sky by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond  
New York: Alfred A. Knopf        2022