Le cordon bleu

My blogger friend Elizabeth Stanforth-Sharpe published a post the other day entitled “Oxford Blue” that consisted of a single photograph. I was inspired to find out more about (what else?) blue.

The Free Dictionary defines blue as “the hue of that portion of the visible spectrum lying between green and indigo, evoked in the human observer by radiant energy with wavelengths of approximately 420 to 490 nanometers” but the article in Wikipedia begins with “Blue is the colour of the clear sky and the deep sea.”

I was hooked. I kept reading the Wikipedia article.

I found this:

(Wheat- field Under Clouded Sky (July 1890), one of the last works of Vincent Van Gogh)

and this:

(In his Gare Saint-Lazare (1877), Claude Monet used several recently-invented colours including cobalt blue, invented in 1807; cerulean blue, invented in 1860; and French ultramarine, first made in 1828.)

and this:

(In Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888), Van Gogh created a mood or atmosphere with a cobalt blue sky, and cobalt or ultramarine water)

and this:

(Coronation of Louis VIII and Blanche of Castille at Reims in 1223; a miniature from the Grandes Chroniques de France, painted in the 1450s, is kept at the National Library of France.)

and this:

(Photo of seagull against an azure sky by Kiban (2009). Used by permission in accordance with GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2)

and this:

(Figure of a servant from the tomb of King Seth I (1244–1279 BC). Used in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)







and this:

(The Great Wave Off Kanagawa by 19th-century Japanese woodblock artist Hokusai used Prussian blue, a synthetic colour imported from Europe)

and this:

(Dendrobates azureus, the poison dart frog from Brazil)

and this:

(Two horses for Münster, neon sculpture by Stephan Huber (2002). Photograph by Wikipedia user de:Benutzer:AndreKR used by permission under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2)

and even these:

{Photo of blueberries (2006) by Scott Schopieray. Used in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)

...which are used in the making of:

Oxford blue ice cream!



I found lots of other blue things as well.

Strangely, I was not inspired to find out more about Oxford.

I think it has something to do with these: