For many years artists have not been able to resist the charm of blue. Partly, per¬haps, due to the symbolic senses attributed to it: blue has been interpreted as a symbol of faithfulness, faith, deliberation, sincerity, purity, piety, infinity and hope. First of all, however, they appreciated its usefulness for the construction of space and for the stressing of attributes of content. Blue is powerful.
Roughly speaking, the Italian Renaissance is still cautious in the choice of this colour. Characteristic of the early Renaissance are delicate blues of Giotto`s, Fra Angelico’s and Filippo Lippi’s paintings, although a deeper colour can be found in the Masaccio. The turn of the 15th and the 16th centuries brings the saturation of blue, more often appearing in scanty dresses and brightening the spaces of the sky and the sea – as it is for example in The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli.
The Northern Renaissance, however, uses heavier blues — mostly in the dresses of models, less frequently in the background (Van der Goes, Dürer, Grünewald). The late Italian Renaissance is similar in this respect; blue and dark blue function as attributes of the form, in people’s dresses and in accessories (Leonardo da Vinci, Perugino, Raphael, Titian). For the construction of space, however, Veronese’s watery blues are predominant.
In the 17th century blue and its derivatives play a secondary role; chiaroscuro and the body prevail (Italian Caravaggionism and Dutch painting from Rembrandt to Rubens). Blue reappears in the Rococo (the 18th c.), but this time it is a different colour: foamy, frivolous (Fragonard, Boucher). In the classicism (the 18th c.), starting with Tiepolo’s works, it goes back to the Italian tradition, but Francisco Goya’s use of this colour is an introduction to the Romanticism. Blues, azures, dark blues express the romantic liberation of the spirit (Delacroix, Géricault, Corot) but also beauty and spiritual nostalgia (W. Turner, C.D. Friedrich). Now we are a step from the career of blue in the works of impressionists and their followers.
The still diffused colours in the Monet, Pissarro and Sisley become fleshy in the Renoir, more precise in Seurat’s dots, ethereal in Degas’ dancers’ dresses and gain dramatic expression in Van Gogh’s dark blue-black sky and later in Fauvism. The true career of blue started with Cezanne and his analytical decomposition of this colour into elements constructing the form. Although Art Nouveau loved blue, it was really Cezanne who in fact created the foundations for its later use in Futurism (e.g. The Blue Dancer by G. Severini from 1912), in abstract art (to search for it in 1911-1914 W. Kandinsky, P. Klee. A. Macke, F. Marc and other artists formed a group Blue Riders – Der Blaue Reiter), in Constructivism and Suprematism (K. Malevich, A. Rodchenko) and finally in Neo-Plasticism (P. Mondrian).
Due to its advantages for the constructing and symbolising of space (giving it attributes of transparency on the one hand, and concealing emotions, suggesting the mystery and enhancing meanings on the other), blue has become a convenient tool for the conveying of form and content. Naturally, P. Picasso (his Blue period) or Surrealists, who use the colour to express irrational and symbolic senses (R. Magritte, M. Ernst), differ widely in its handling from avantgarde artists reducing the means of expression. J. Albers’ Homage to the Blue Square could be seen as an introduction to the mystical emptiness of Yves Klein’s paintings (blue Monochromes form the 50s) or blue paintings of Barnet Newman (e.g. The Queen of the Night from 1967). This abstract toning down and diffusion of blue will return in the works of minimalists in the 70s, although at the same time blue will appear in the art of trivialised object and pop-art (e.g. Claes Oldenburg’s Gigantic Blue Trousers from 1962 or blue material of Christo`s interventions). Postmodernism quotes blue variously – against its symbolic connotations or painterly values.
Today artists do not feel confined by the meanings historically associated with a given colour. Which does not mean that – chosen and assimilated – they are not attractive means with which to stress one’s attitude, personal preferences and directions of artistic penetration.
If today a young artist chooses a key of a dominant colour, it can be interpreted in two ways: as a manifestation of his ambition to measure swords with famous predecessors (he runs the risk of being suspected of the lack of originality) or as his desire to re-consider and transform old patterns. It is a difficult path, and no one knows whether the artist will reach his goal. But perhaps that’s why it is worthwhile to follow it.
Anka Brudzińska has chosen this way. She pinned her faith to blues – hoping to build her own piece of the blue sky. She started with the interior of her workshop, which she turned into a kind of laboratory for experiencing blue (Blue Box). Find the Line of the Sky in Yourself – reads the title of a work built of pieces of a mirror reflecting a blue line. This installation introduces a series of works entitled The Laboratory of the Line, which confirms the desire to transform surrounding objects into particles of all-embracing symbolism of this colour. Blue, ultramarine, cobalt blue, azure… plus white and black – this is the colour range of Sky-Blue Structures, a series of large canvasses (from 1999-2000), repeating the gesture of action painters, but in another reality and another space.
Let us hope (after all, blue is a symbol of hope) that in these experiments with the history of this colour and its present-day power the artist will find an original, inimitable expression – her own piece of the sky.
#annabrudzinska anna brudzinska anna brudzińska #anna.brudzinska Andrzej Saj