1 00:00:01,320 --> 00:00:04,000 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 2 00:00:04,160 --> 00:00:13,520 Speaker 1: of Iheartradios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to a podcast. 3 00:00:13,560 --> 00:00:17,000 Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. Today we 4 00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:20,400 Speaker 1: are sharing our live show from the National Gallery of 5 00:00:20,520 --> 00:00:23,239 Speaker 1: Art Washington, which we did in September as part of 6 00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:26,239 Speaker 1: their MGA Nights programming, and we actually did this show 7 00:00:26,280 --> 00:00:28,280 Speaker 1: twice over the course of the evening so that more 8 00:00:28,320 --> 00:00:31,480 Speaker 1: people who attended that event, which is very popular, could 9 00:00:31,520 --> 00:00:33,599 Speaker 1: get in and see it. And so today we are 10 00:00:33,640 --> 00:00:36,000 Speaker 1: sharing the first of those two. We're not going to 11 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:38,120 Speaker 1: share the second one because it would effectively be the 12 00:00:38,159 --> 00:00:46,599 Speaker 1: exact same show. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 13 00:00:46,640 --> 00:00:49,440 Speaker 1: Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. Blue is my 14 00:00:49,520 --> 00:00:55,080 Speaker 1: favorite color and that makes me not special. Blue is 15 00:00:55,120 --> 00:00:57,840 Speaker 1: the most popular color and a lot of the world. 16 00:00:58,280 --> 00:01:01,040 Speaker 1: For example, there was a survey that was conducted in 17 00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:06,760 Speaker 1: twenty fifteen that polled people in Britain, Germany, the United States, Australia, China, 18 00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:11,960 Speaker 1: Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia, and in all 19 00:01:12,040 --> 00:01:15,520 Speaker 1: of those places, blue was the most popular color by 20 00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:19,039 Speaker 1: a significant margin. So I am not alone in the 21 00:01:19,040 --> 00:01:21,720 Speaker 1: world in my love of blue. It can also feel 22 00:01:21,720 --> 00:01:23,880 Speaker 1: like we're really surrounded by blue all the time, because 23 00:01:23,880 --> 00:01:26,440 Speaker 1: we have the blue sky and the reflection of the 24 00:01:26,440 --> 00:01:29,200 Speaker 1: sky in the water, and then things like blue jeans, 25 00:01:29,240 --> 00:01:31,720 Speaker 1: and then all the blue stuff that people buy because 26 00:01:31,720 --> 00:01:35,920 Speaker 1: it's everyone's favorite color. And yet a lot of ancient 27 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:39,200 Speaker 1: languages did not have a word for blue at all. 28 00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:42,760 Speaker 1: Some languages still don't. For a lot of human history, 29 00:01:42,800 --> 00:01:45,600 Speaker 1: the process of making blue dyes and paints has been 30 00:01:45,640 --> 00:01:49,760 Speaker 1: pretty prohibitively expensive and complicated if people knew how to 31 00:01:49,760 --> 00:01:53,040 Speaker 1: do it at all. So blue used to be really rare, 32 00:01:53,440 --> 00:01:55,960 Speaker 1: and today we're going to talk about blues progression from 33 00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:58,880 Speaker 1: something that there wasn't even a name for because it 34 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:02,160 Speaker 1: was so rare. To some that seems really ubiquitous. And 35 00:02:02,440 --> 00:02:04,680 Speaker 1: like Tracy just said, there were a lot of ancient 36 00:02:04,720 --> 00:02:07,600 Speaker 1: languages that just had no word for blue whatsoever. And 37 00:02:07,640 --> 00:02:10,360 Speaker 1: this is something that folks started figuring out thanks to 38 00:02:10,440 --> 00:02:14,079 Speaker 1: William Ewart Gladstone, who spent four terms as Prime Minister 39 00:02:14,240 --> 00:02:17,000 Speaker 1: of the United Kingdom between eighteen sixty eight and eighteen 40 00:02:17,080 --> 00:02:20,920 Speaker 1: ninety four. But he had also studied classics at Oxford 41 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:24,119 Speaker 1: and ten years before he became Prime Minister, he published 42 00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:27,519 Speaker 1: a six hundred plus page book that was called Studies 43 00:02:27,560 --> 00:02:30,200 Speaker 1: on Homer and the Homeric Age, and it had a 44 00:02:30,200 --> 00:02:34,200 Speaker 1: whole section in it titled Homer's Perceptions and Use of Color. 45 00:02:34,520 --> 00:02:36,120 Speaker 1: I really liked that. One of the jobs that you 46 00:02:36,160 --> 00:02:39,200 Speaker 1: can have had before being Prime Minister as classicist. That 47 00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:41,440 Speaker 1: seems cool. I feel like if we had more of 48 00:02:41,480 --> 00:02:48,680 Speaker 1: that and less of other things, you'd be in great shape. Well. So, 49 00:02:48,800 --> 00:02:51,880 Speaker 1: in this section of the book, Gladstone outlined what he 50 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:55,040 Speaker 1: interpreted as signs of immaturity. That was one of his 51 00:02:55,080 --> 00:02:58,120 Speaker 1: words for it, in Homer's ability to differentiate color. And 52 00:02:58,240 --> 00:03:01,840 Speaker 1: here is what he said, one the paucity of his colors, 53 00:03:02,360 --> 00:03:05,240 Speaker 1: to the use of the same word to denote not 54 00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:08,200 Speaker 1: only different hues or tints of the same color, but 55 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:12,360 Speaker 1: colors which, according to us, are essentially different. Three the 56 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:16,600 Speaker 1: description of the same object under epithets of color fundamentally 57 00:03:16,680 --> 00:03:21,120 Speaker 1: disagreeing with one another. For the vast predominance of the 58 00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:24,000 Speaker 1: most crude and elemental forms of color, black and white, 59 00:03:24,040 --> 00:03:27,639 Speaker 1: over every other, and the decided tendency to treat other 60 00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:32,280 Speaker 1: colors as simply intermediates between those two extremes five the 61 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:35,800 Speaker 1: slight use of color and Homer as compared with other 62 00:03:35,880 --> 00:03:39,160 Speaker 1: elements of beauty for the purposes of poetic effect, and 63 00:03:39,240 --> 00:03:42,680 Speaker 1: its absence in certain cases we might confidently expect it. 64 00:03:43,280 --> 00:03:46,920 Speaker 1: So in other words, Homer's use of color descriptors seemed 65 00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:51,360 Speaker 1: kind of contradictory and frankly just haphazard. Homer's works mostly 66 00:03:51,400 --> 00:03:54,840 Speaker 1: referred to things as black or white, and sometimes referred 67 00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:58,760 Speaker 1: to the same object using different color descriptors at different times, 68 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:03,000 Speaker 1: or describe things with strange colors, like he described both 69 00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:08,240 Speaker 1: blood and a rainbow with a word that translates essentially 70 00:04:08,280 --> 00:04:11,720 Speaker 1: as violet, or calling the sea wine dark, which I 71 00:04:11,800 --> 00:04:13,880 Speaker 1: know maybe he got criticized for, but it sounds very 72 00:04:13,880 --> 00:04:17,520 Speaker 1: poetic to me. Homer's writing also seems to have had 73 00:04:17,920 --> 00:04:21,960 Speaker 1: no word that specifically meant blue. And side note, there 74 00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:24,119 Speaker 1: is actually a lot of debate as well about whether 75 00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:26,560 Speaker 1: all of the writing that is attributed to Homer now 76 00:04:26,760 --> 00:04:29,320 Speaker 1: was really the work of one person or if there 77 00:04:29,320 --> 00:04:31,599 Speaker 1: are multiple people involved that all kind of fell into 78 00:04:31,640 --> 00:04:34,800 Speaker 1: this umbrella. But that is a whole different story and 79 00:04:34,839 --> 00:04:37,440 Speaker 1: way outside the scope of what we're talking about tonight. 80 00:04:37,480 --> 00:04:39,000 Speaker 1: But just keep that in mind as we talk about 81 00:04:39,040 --> 00:04:41,839 Speaker 1: Homer's work. Yeah, yeah, regardless of whether Homer was one 82 00:04:41,880 --> 00:04:45,880 Speaker 1: person or many people. This whole conversation led to some 83 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:49,200 Speaker 1: discussion about whether people in the Homeric age were color 84 00:04:49,279 --> 00:04:54,480 Speaker 1: blind or otherwise, we're perceiving color color differently than cited 85 00:04:54,480 --> 00:04:57,760 Speaker 1: people in the nineteenth century when Gladstone was writing, and 86 00:04:57,839 --> 00:05:01,400 Speaker 1: we'll get back to that. Idea also led to further 87 00:05:01,720 --> 00:05:05,920 Speaker 1: study about how ancient writers were describing and naming colors, 88 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:09,160 Speaker 1: and it quickly became clear that other ancient writings also 89 00:05:09,320 --> 00:05:12,480 Speaker 1: had odd uses of color, including not having a word 90 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:17,000 Speaker 1: for the color blue. Researchers studied these language patterns for decades, 91 00:05:17,240 --> 00:05:19,920 Speaker 1: and then in nineteen sixty nine, Brent Berlin and Paul 92 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:25,039 Speaker 1: Key published Basic Color Terms. Their universality and evolution and 93 00:05:25,080 --> 00:05:27,719 Speaker 1: basic color terms are essentially single words that can be 94 00:05:27,760 --> 00:05:30,720 Speaker 1: applied to a wide range of objects and are understood 95 00:05:30,720 --> 00:05:33,760 Speaker 1: by most native speakers of a given language. So in English, 96 00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:37,920 Speaker 1: for example, there are all kinds of words describing different 97 00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:41,560 Speaker 1: shades and hues, but there are actually only eleven basic 98 00:05:41,640 --> 00:05:46,640 Speaker 1: color terms, and those are red, yellow, green, blue, black, white, gray, orange, brown, pink, 99 00:05:47,040 --> 00:05:51,200 Speaker 1: and thank goodness, purple. One of the important things about 100 00:05:51,200 --> 00:05:53,400 Speaker 1: basic color terms is that like, there's an agreed on 101 00:05:53,720 --> 00:05:57,359 Speaker 1: shade that they are describing. So even though violet was 102 00:05:57,400 --> 00:05:59,640 Speaker 1: one of the words that Homer was using, the fact 103 00:05:59,680 --> 00:06:02,200 Speaker 1: that it was sort of being applied to seemingly random 104 00:06:02,279 --> 00:06:05,080 Speaker 1: objects would mean that that wasn't really functioning as a 105 00:06:05,080 --> 00:06:08,760 Speaker 1: basic color word or a basic color term. All the 106 00:06:08,839 --> 00:06:12,080 Speaker 1: languages that Berlin and k studied had a minimum of 107 00:06:12,200 --> 00:06:16,000 Speaker 1: two basic color terms black and white, sometimes described as 108 00:06:16,040 --> 00:06:18,440 Speaker 1: light and dark. And here is something that I think 109 00:06:18,440 --> 00:06:21,960 Speaker 1: it's really cool. And languages that had three basic color terms, 110 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:25,159 Speaker 1: the third one was red, and languages with four, the 111 00:06:25,240 --> 00:06:28,040 Speaker 1: fourth one was either yellow or green, and then the 112 00:06:28,080 --> 00:06:30,279 Speaker 1: other of those was the fifth one. In languages that 113 00:06:30,320 --> 00:06:33,640 Speaker 1: had five, it's only when a language had six basic 114 00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:36,320 Speaker 1: color terms that it had a color term for blue, 115 00:06:36,880 --> 00:06:39,520 Speaker 1: and then from there the pattern didn't hold up much 116 00:06:39,560 --> 00:06:43,080 Speaker 1: farther There was brown as the seventh color, and then 117 00:06:43,120 --> 00:06:47,200 Speaker 1: colors beyond that just followed in no particular order. And 118 00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:50,880 Speaker 1: this nineteen sixty nine work had studied a relatively small 119 00:06:50,880 --> 00:06:54,080 Speaker 1: group of bilingual people, all of whom spoke English, and 120 00:06:54,200 --> 00:06:57,719 Speaker 1: most of them lived in industrial areas, and this naturally 121 00:06:57,800 --> 00:07:00,240 Speaker 1: led to a lot of discussion and questions about whether 122 00:07:00,279 --> 00:07:03,920 Speaker 1: these results could really be considered universal. So in the 123 00:07:03,960 --> 00:07:07,080 Speaker 1: late nineteen seventies, Berlin and k started working on their 124 00:07:07,120 --> 00:07:10,280 Speaker 1: World Color Survey, which asked more than twenty five hundred 125 00:07:10,680 --> 00:07:14,680 Speaker 1: native speakers of unwritten languages around the world to identify 126 00:07:14,760 --> 00:07:18,520 Speaker 1: various colors. Berlin and Kay published a monograph on this 127 00:07:18,640 --> 00:07:21,600 Speaker 1: in July of two thousand and nine, and they reported 128 00:07:21,600 --> 00:07:24,840 Speaker 1: that more than eighty percent of the world's languages followed 129 00:07:24,840 --> 00:07:28,120 Speaker 1: this pattern of black and white and then red, and 130 00:07:28,160 --> 00:07:30,360 Speaker 1: then yellow or green, and then the other one of 131 00:07:30,400 --> 00:07:34,240 Speaker 1: those and then blue. And these ancient languages without a 132 00:07:34,320 --> 00:07:37,520 Speaker 1: word for blue seems to follow these same patterns. A 133 00:07:37,560 --> 00:07:39,760 Speaker 1: lot of them have the black, white, and red and 134 00:07:39,800 --> 00:07:44,160 Speaker 1: that's it sounds like my wedding, not at all like 135 00:07:44,240 --> 00:07:47,600 Speaker 1: Game of Thrones and way before that. There has been 136 00:07:47,640 --> 00:07:50,400 Speaker 1: a lot of research since then into why this pattern 137 00:07:50,440 --> 00:07:53,440 Speaker 1: actually exists and how to interpret all of this information. 138 00:07:53,880 --> 00:07:56,400 Speaker 1: And there's also been research into whether that pattern is 139 00:07:56,480 --> 00:08:00,680 Speaker 1: evidence that ancient people saw fewer colors, like William Ewert 140 00:08:00,680 --> 00:08:04,480 Speaker 1: Gladston suggested, as well as whether people living today whose 141 00:08:04,560 --> 00:08:08,440 Speaker 1: languages have fewer color terms, are actually perceiving fewer colors, 142 00:08:08,520 --> 00:08:11,800 Speaker 1: or if they're perceiving them differently. So a lot of 143 00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:15,800 Speaker 1: that research is really contradictory and inconclusive. There are lots 144 00:08:15,800 --> 00:08:18,480 Speaker 1: of questions that we don't have one hundred percent agreed 145 00:08:18,520 --> 00:08:23,840 Speaker 1: upon answers to yet, like are there physiological differences in 146 00:08:23,880 --> 00:08:27,040 Speaker 1: the eyes or brains of people who speak languages that 147 00:08:27,120 --> 00:08:30,800 Speaker 1: include different numbers of basic color terms. There's some research 148 00:08:30,880 --> 00:08:35,240 Speaker 1: that suggests yes, and other research that suggests know if 149 00:08:35,280 --> 00:08:39,000 Speaker 1: there are physiological differences, are those differences a result of 150 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:42,200 Speaker 1: the language differences or is it the other way around? 151 00:08:42,320 --> 00:08:45,880 Speaker 1: How much of this is physiological? How much is socially constructed? 152 00:08:46,440 --> 00:08:50,600 Speaker 1: Are colors as cited people perceive them universal or are 153 00:08:50,600 --> 00:08:53,360 Speaker 1: they relative? And it might seem a little bit weird 154 00:08:53,920 --> 00:08:57,440 Speaker 1: that there are so many unanswered questions about colors, because 155 00:08:57,480 --> 00:09:00,440 Speaker 1: it's really easy to imagine that colors are un changing 156 00:09:00,440 --> 00:09:02,760 Speaker 1: physical traits. I know what purple looks like. It's purple, 157 00:09:03,679 --> 00:09:06,679 Speaker 1: But it's true. There's an element of physics to all 158 00:09:06,720 --> 00:09:09,720 Speaker 1: of this. Isaac Newton started working with the visible spectrum 159 00:09:09,720 --> 00:09:12,000 Speaker 1: of light in the sixteen sixties, and he used a 160 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:15,920 Speaker 1: prism to refract sunlight into a spectrum that he described 161 00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:20,320 Speaker 1: as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. But 162 00:09:20,400 --> 00:09:23,480 Speaker 1: before this, societies around the world had their own ideas 163 00:09:23,520 --> 00:09:26,439 Speaker 1: about what light was made of and where colors came from, 164 00:09:26,880 --> 00:09:29,920 Speaker 1: And even Newton's work, which became the foundation of how 165 00:09:29,960 --> 00:09:33,199 Speaker 1: we all talk about color and light, was influenced by 166 00:09:33,200 --> 00:09:36,880 Speaker 1: his own preconceived ideas. For example, the reason that there 167 00:09:36,920 --> 00:09:40,079 Speaker 1: is an indigo in his list is because he just 168 00:09:40,120 --> 00:09:42,720 Speaker 1: thought there needed to be seven colors. Yes, there's seven 169 00:09:42,800 --> 00:09:45,640 Speaker 1: days of the week, seven notes at a musical scale, 170 00:09:45,760 --> 00:09:48,600 Speaker 1: seven's like an auspicious number. Clearly there have to be 171 00:09:48,720 --> 00:09:53,520 Speaker 1: seven colors. So, in other words, colors just aren't static, 172 00:09:53,720 --> 00:09:57,200 Speaker 1: unchanging traits that exist all by themselves. Our understanding of 173 00:09:57,240 --> 00:10:00,680 Speaker 1: colors is socially constructed, and the way people describe the 174 00:10:00,720 --> 00:10:04,320 Speaker 1: colors around them can vary dramatically based on language and culture. 175 00:10:04,920 --> 00:10:09,000 Speaker 1: Societies give colors their own symbolic meanings, and those meetings 176 00:10:09,120 --> 00:10:11,560 Speaker 1: change and evolve over time in response to all kinds 177 00:10:11,600 --> 00:10:15,880 Speaker 1: of factors, including what pigments are available, how expensive those 178 00:10:15,920 --> 00:10:19,320 Speaker 1: pigments are, whether there were laws about how they could 179 00:10:19,360 --> 00:10:22,240 Speaker 1: be used, and what's in fashion at the moment. So 180 00:10:22,480 --> 00:10:24,839 Speaker 1: when we look back into colors in the past. This can, 181 00:10:24,960 --> 00:10:28,640 Speaker 1: of course, get really complicated. An ancient culture may have 182 00:10:28,679 --> 00:10:31,000 Speaker 1: had no word for blue, and if they did, it 183 00:10:31,080 --> 00:10:33,280 Speaker 1: might have been used for a different range of shades 184 00:10:33,520 --> 00:10:36,800 Speaker 1: that an English speaker living today might imagine. And even 185 00:10:36,840 --> 00:10:40,400 Speaker 1: if we have examples of that culture's physical objects like 186 00:10:40,559 --> 00:10:44,120 Speaker 1: jewelry or textiles or works of art, their colors can 187 00:10:44,200 --> 00:10:47,239 Speaker 1: change over time thanks to things like fading and oxidation 188 00:10:47,600 --> 00:10:50,880 Speaker 1: and just dirt getting on them, and exactly how they 189 00:10:50,920 --> 00:10:53,640 Speaker 1: fade and shift can really vary depending on what an 190 00:10:53,640 --> 00:10:56,600 Speaker 1: object is made of, what pigment was used to color it, 191 00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:00,120 Speaker 1: the binders that were used with those pigments, how it 192 00:11:00,200 --> 00:11:02,960 Speaker 1: was handled since then, and what pollutants have been in 193 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:05,760 Speaker 1: the air, and on and on. There's so many factors 194 00:11:05,880 --> 00:11:07,600 Speaker 1: on top of all of that. When we look at 195 00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:09,720 Speaker 1: a work of art, especially a work of art that 196 00:11:09,800 --> 00:11:12,439 Speaker 1: was made long ago in the past, we are almost 197 00:11:12,480 --> 00:11:16,439 Speaker 1: certainly seeing it under totally different lighting conditions than the 198 00:11:16,559 --> 00:11:19,600 Speaker 1: artists who than the artists who created had when they 199 00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:22,560 Speaker 1: were making it. And one of the hypotheses for why 200 00:11:22,640 --> 00:11:24,920 Speaker 1: so many ancient languages did not have a word for 201 00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:28,200 Speaker 1: blue is that they just didn't need one. Most ancient 202 00:11:28,240 --> 00:11:30,959 Speaker 1: cultures did not have a way to make blue pigment. 203 00:11:31,320 --> 00:11:33,680 Speaker 1: And while there is blue in nature, of course, thanks 204 00:11:33,679 --> 00:11:36,600 Speaker 1: to things like flowers and berries and butterflies and birds 205 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:40,320 Speaker 1: and the sky, it's not nearly as common as other 206 00:11:40,400 --> 00:11:42,640 Speaker 1: colors are. And we're going to talk about how people 207 00:11:43,240 --> 00:11:45,560 Speaker 1: worked out a way to make their own blue. After 208 00:11:45,600 --> 00:11:53,240 Speaker 1: we first pause for what will be a little sponsor break, 209 00:11:55,320 --> 00:11:57,439 Speaker 1: we're going to talk a bit about pains and pigments. 210 00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:01,640 Speaker 1: If you look at some paleolithic rock art and cave art, 211 00:12:01,800 --> 00:12:04,520 Speaker 1: you will notice a pretty similar use of color no 212 00:12:04,600 --> 00:12:06,920 Speaker 1: matter where in the world you're looking, because the palette 213 00:12:06,920 --> 00:12:09,600 Speaker 1: tends to be really earthy. There's lots of brown and 214 00:12:09,679 --> 00:12:12,840 Speaker 1: yellow and red and black, and there are naturally occurring 215 00:12:12,920 --> 00:12:16,040 Speaker 1: pigments that produce these colors and are pretty abundant in 216 00:12:16,080 --> 00:12:18,800 Speaker 1: a lot of the world, like ochre, which is made 217 00:12:18,800 --> 00:12:23,000 Speaker 1: from iron oxide and various earthy materials. Different cultures have 218 00:12:23,040 --> 00:12:26,679 Speaker 1: had their own ceremonial and symbolic methods of preparing and 219 00:12:26,760 --> 00:12:29,360 Speaker 1: using these pigments, but basically you can really just grind 220 00:12:29,400 --> 00:12:31,440 Speaker 1: up some rocks and put water in there and paint 221 00:12:31,440 --> 00:12:33,760 Speaker 1: with it. Do you ever have a teacher, like an 222 00:12:33,840 --> 00:12:36,040 Speaker 1: art teacher have you do that? I think so probably 223 00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:38,000 Speaker 1: not a lot. Uh. You can't really do that with 224 00:12:38,040 --> 00:12:41,640 Speaker 1: blue though. It turns out there are not many blue minerals, 225 00:12:41,640 --> 00:12:44,080 Speaker 1: and the ones that do exist typically cannot just be 226 00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:47,000 Speaker 1: crushed and mixed with water like you could do with ochre. 227 00:12:47,600 --> 00:12:50,280 Speaker 1: Mashing up blueberries or blue flowers might seem like a 228 00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:52,320 Speaker 1: great idea, and you could try to use that and 229 00:12:52,440 --> 00:12:54,720 Speaker 1: paint with it, but it's actually usually going to turn 230 00:12:54,720 --> 00:12:57,280 Speaker 1: out kind of brownish or gray, and often it's also 231 00:12:57,360 --> 00:12:59,400 Speaker 1: going to fade really quickly, so you're going to lose 232 00:12:59,400 --> 00:13:02,439 Speaker 1: that blue color you were chasing. And ancient peoples could 233 00:13:02,440 --> 00:13:05,880 Speaker 1: carve objects out of blue stones or minerals or shells, 234 00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:09,520 Speaker 1: or make decorative objects with feathers, but that was about it. 235 00:13:09,840 --> 00:13:14,080 Speaker 1: Even substances like Lapis lazulie, which were eventually made into pigments, 236 00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:17,080 Speaker 1: were first used just primarily to make carvings in inlays, 237 00:13:17,200 --> 00:13:20,320 Speaker 1: rather than actually trying to use them as dyes or paints. 238 00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:24,120 Speaker 1: So that changed with the development of the first synthetic pigment, 239 00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:28,000 Speaker 1: which happened by about thirty one hundred BCE that came 240 00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:30,880 Speaker 1: to be known as Egyptian blue, and according to Roman 241 00:13:30,960 --> 00:13:34,520 Speaker 1: writer Vitruvius. It was made from sand, copper, and matron, 242 00:13:34,920 --> 00:13:39,960 Speaker 1: which is a naturally occurring sodium carbonate compound. Modern experiments 243 00:13:40,040 --> 00:13:44,080 Speaker 1: have pinpointed the likely ingredients as silica, copper, and calcium. 244 00:13:44,640 --> 00:13:48,199 Speaker 1: Usually the silica probably came from sand and the calcium 245 00:13:48,240 --> 00:13:51,199 Speaker 1: came from limestone, although it was also possible for sand 246 00:13:51,320 --> 00:13:55,160 Speaker 1: to include calcite or flex of limestone itself. So these 247 00:13:55,280 --> 00:13:57,360 Speaker 1: ingredients had to be mixed with a small amount of 248 00:13:57,360 --> 00:14:00,760 Speaker 1: alkali and then be heated to between eight hundred and 249 00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:03,400 Speaker 1: fifteen one thousand degrees celsius. And when we were running 250 00:14:03,400 --> 00:14:07,040 Speaker 1: through this script earlier today, I went, is that right? 251 00:14:07,320 --> 00:14:10,960 Speaker 1: That seems incredibly hot? And I was in my hotel 252 00:14:11,040 --> 00:14:14,640 Speaker 1: room as we were getting ready confirming it with like 253 00:14:14,760 --> 00:14:18,040 Speaker 1: five different sources. Yes, it was that hot, which just 254 00:14:18,040 --> 00:14:19,600 Speaker 1: seems like it would all be on fire to me. 255 00:14:19,680 --> 00:14:23,800 Speaker 1: But that's why I'm not a scientist. We don't really 256 00:14:23,880 --> 00:14:26,600 Speaker 1: know who worked out this recipe or what their process 257 00:14:26,840 --> 00:14:29,040 Speaker 1: was for figuring it out. We don't know if it 258 00:14:29,080 --> 00:14:31,880 Speaker 1: was an accidental discovery or if it was the result 259 00:14:31,880 --> 00:14:34,200 Speaker 1: of a more methodical process to try to get to 260 00:14:34,280 --> 00:14:38,120 Speaker 1: this final result. It may have been developed even outside 261 00:14:38,160 --> 00:14:41,520 Speaker 1: of Egypt, possibly in Mesopotamia. Yeah, it could have been 262 00:14:41,560 --> 00:14:44,680 Speaker 1: anywhere on a spectrum between like the kids through some 263 00:14:44,920 --> 00:14:47,920 Speaker 1: sand in the kiln to I'm gonna figure this out, 264 00:14:48,040 --> 00:14:52,760 Speaker 1: like no idea a lot of room. Egyptian blue was 265 00:14:52,840 --> 00:14:55,800 Speaker 1: used in Egyptian art from its discovery until the end 266 00:14:55,840 --> 00:14:58,440 Speaker 1: of the Roman Area era, and there is still a 267 00:14:58,480 --> 00:15:01,680 Speaker 1: lot of artwork that exists today that was made with it. 268 00:15:02,120 --> 00:15:05,600 Speaker 1: The blue coloring isn't necessarily visible on all of it, though. 269 00:15:05,960 --> 00:15:08,560 Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, it was discovered that Egyptian 270 00:15:08,600 --> 00:15:12,320 Speaker 1: blue has a near infrared luminescence that can help researchers 271 00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:14,680 Speaker 1: find traces of it that aren't visible to the naked 272 00:15:14,680 --> 00:15:19,360 Speaker 1: eye anymore so. About that same time, conservation scientists used 273 00:15:19,440 --> 00:15:22,640 Speaker 1: that discovery to confirm that there are traces of Egyptian 274 00:15:22,680 --> 00:15:26,480 Speaker 1: blue on the Parthenon marbles, and we have artwork where 275 00:15:26,480 --> 00:15:28,800 Speaker 1: we can see this pigment that is at least three 276 00:15:28,840 --> 00:15:32,200 Speaker 1: thousand years old, and the pigment itself has held up. 277 00:15:32,800 --> 00:15:34,960 Speaker 1: The binders that have been used with it have not 278 00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:38,120 Speaker 1: always fared as well, though. For example, pieces that used 279 00:15:38,120 --> 00:15:40,960 Speaker 1: a lot of gum Arabic as a binder have tended 280 00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:44,840 Speaker 1: to blacken or turn green over time. The Egyptian term 281 00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:49,120 Speaker 1: for Egyptian blue translates to artificial lapis lazili. And the 282 00:15:49,160 --> 00:15:51,840 Speaker 1: next pigment we're going to talk about is ultramarine, which 283 00:15:51,960 --> 00:15:56,000 Speaker 1: was made out of lapis lazolie. Lapis lazili is a 284 00:15:56,040 --> 00:15:59,360 Speaker 1: metamorphic rock that's found primarily in one place in the 285 00:15:59,400 --> 00:16:03,040 Speaker 1: Eastern Hemisphere, and that's the premier mountains in Central Asia. 286 00:16:03,600 --> 00:16:07,280 Speaker 1: People in what's now Afghanistan were mining lapis as early 287 00:16:07,320 --> 00:16:10,760 Speaker 1: as seven thousand BCE, and by thirty five hundred BCE 288 00:16:11,200 --> 00:16:14,360 Speaker 1: was being carried thousands of miles along trade routes through 289 00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:17,400 Speaker 1: Asia and Europe and Africa. And as we said earlier, 290 00:16:17,840 --> 00:16:20,440 Speaker 1: the first uses of lapis lazolie were mostly to make 291 00:16:20,480 --> 00:16:24,200 Speaker 1: carved objects and inlays. Although lapis could be crushed into 292 00:16:24,240 --> 00:16:26,920 Speaker 1: powder and used as a pigment, that pigment was not 293 00:16:27,080 --> 00:16:29,720 Speaker 1: very pure because lapis is made up of a mixture 294 00:16:29,880 --> 00:16:33,360 Speaker 1: of different minerals, and these minerals, depending on what their 295 00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:36,760 Speaker 1: concentrations were, would all affect the final color. So if 296 00:16:36,800 --> 00:16:43,000 Speaker 1: there were impurities present, and again those concentrations, different preparations 297 00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:46,240 Speaker 1: could look completely different from one another. And then they 298 00:16:46,280 --> 00:16:49,520 Speaker 1: would also look completely different. Over time, people still tried it, 299 00:16:49,560 --> 00:16:52,160 Speaker 1: though there is evidence of lapis being used as a 300 00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:55,680 Speaker 1: paint in the Karnak Temple complex in Egypt. By about 301 00:16:55,680 --> 00:16:58,520 Speaker 1: the sixth century, though, people had worked out how to 302 00:16:58,560 --> 00:17:02,440 Speaker 1: purify lapis lazili into a pure blue pigment now known 303 00:17:02,480 --> 00:17:06,080 Speaker 1: as ultramarine. Unlike with Egyptian blue, we do have the 304 00:17:06,119 --> 00:17:09,719 Speaker 1: recipe for this. One artist and writer Tanino Chanini, who 305 00:17:09,800 --> 00:17:13,760 Speaker 1: lived between about thirteen seventy and fourteen forty, wrote the 306 00:17:13,840 --> 00:17:16,439 Speaker 1: process down in a lot of detail. And you may 307 00:17:16,480 --> 00:17:19,240 Speaker 1: have heard that ultramarine was worth more than gold and 308 00:17:19,320 --> 00:17:23,879 Speaker 1: Chininocinini's method really illustrates why it wasn't just because lapis 309 00:17:23,920 --> 00:17:27,040 Speaker 1: laslie was only being mined in one area of Afghanistan 310 00:17:27,080 --> 00:17:31,520 Speaker 1: at the time. The process was also long and really complicated, 311 00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:34,560 Speaker 1: and it yields a very small amount of usable pigment. 312 00:17:34,840 --> 00:17:38,560 Speaker 1: So here's how he described it in his book of art. Quote, First, 313 00:17:38,680 --> 00:17:41,440 Speaker 1: take some lapis lazolie, and if you would know how 314 00:17:41,440 --> 00:17:45,080 Speaker 1: to distinguish the best stones, take those which contain most 315 00:17:45,119 --> 00:17:47,399 Speaker 1: of the blue color. So it is for it is 316 00:17:47,520 --> 00:17:51,679 Speaker 1: mixed with what is like ashes, that which contains least 317 00:17:51,680 --> 00:17:54,479 Speaker 1: of this ash pigment is best, but be careful that 318 00:17:54,520 --> 00:17:57,160 Speaker 1: you do not mistake it for azu odella magna, which 319 00:17:57,200 --> 00:18:01,600 Speaker 1: is beautiful to the eye as enamel. Azuro Della magna 320 00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:05,720 Speaker 1: is as you write, which is copper carbonate, carbonate material 321 00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:07,840 Speaker 1: that was being used to make blue pigments during the 322 00:18:07,880 --> 00:18:10,400 Speaker 1: Middle Ages and Renaissance, although it was hard to mind, 323 00:18:10,480 --> 00:18:12,520 Speaker 1: and it was also tricky to work with, but it 324 00:18:12,600 --> 00:18:15,520 Speaker 1: was cheaper than ultramarine, although it was not as stable 325 00:18:15,640 --> 00:18:19,040 Speaker 1: or vibrant as a pigment. So going back to the recipe, 326 00:18:19,040 --> 00:18:21,560 Speaker 1: once you've got your lap as lassally you pound it 327 00:18:21,600 --> 00:18:24,960 Speaker 1: in a bronze mortar covered so that the dust doesn't 328 00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:27,760 Speaker 1: just fly out. You grind it, and you strain it, 329 00:18:27,840 --> 00:18:30,240 Speaker 1: and you sift it, and you pound it quote again 330 00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:33,159 Speaker 1: as much as is required. But bear in mind that 331 00:18:33,880 --> 00:18:36,760 Speaker 1: though the more you grind, the more finely powdered the 332 00:18:36,800 --> 00:18:39,479 Speaker 1: A zero will be, yet it will not be so 333 00:18:39,600 --> 00:18:42,520 Speaker 1: beautiful and rich and deep in color. And all of 334 00:18:42,560 --> 00:18:46,120 Speaker 1: this pounding and grinding and straining and sifting was difficult 335 00:18:46,119 --> 00:18:50,040 Speaker 1: because lapis lasolie is physically hard to pulverize. And this 336 00:18:50,240 --> 00:18:52,960 Speaker 1: was also just the beginning He went on to write, quote, 337 00:18:52,960 --> 00:18:56,240 Speaker 1: when the powder is prepared, procure from the druggist, six 338 00:18:56,320 --> 00:18:59,480 Speaker 1: ounces of resin of the pine, three ounces of mastic, 339 00:18:59,520 --> 00:19:01,960 Speaker 1: and three ouns ounces of new wax to each pound 340 00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:05,320 Speaker 1: of lapis lasili. Put all these ingredients into a new 341 00:19:05,359 --> 00:19:08,480 Speaker 1: pipkin and melt them together. Then take a piece of 342 00:19:08,520 --> 00:19:11,840 Speaker 1: white linen and strain these things into a glazed basin. 343 00:19:12,600 --> 00:19:15,040 Speaker 1: Then take a pound of the powder of lapis laslie. 344 00:19:15,520 --> 00:19:17,879 Speaker 1: Mix it all well together into a paste, and that 345 00:19:17,960 --> 00:19:20,800 Speaker 1: you may be able to handle the paste. Take linseed 346 00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:23,879 Speaker 1: oil and keep your hands always well anointed with this oil. 347 00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:27,040 Speaker 1: This paste must be kept at least three days and 348 00:19:27,119 --> 00:19:30,400 Speaker 1: three nights, kneading it a little every day, and remember 349 00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:33,000 Speaker 1: that you may keep it for fifteen days or a month, 350 00:19:33,080 --> 00:19:36,840 Speaker 1: or as long as you please. I like how it's 351 00:19:36,880 --> 00:19:41,760 Speaker 1: like three days, but like forever's cool. Yeah, it's totally fine. Also, 352 00:19:41,840 --> 00:19:45,800 Speaker 1: it's not lapis lassili yet, or it's not ultramarine yet. 353 00:19:45,920 --> 00:19:48,000 Speaker 1: You still need to extract the pigment from the paste 354 00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:50,879 Speaker 1: that you just made and left from between three days 355 00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:54,760 Speaker 1: and forever. You do this by putting the paste in 356 00:19:54,840 --> 00:19:59,560 Speaker 1: a glazed basin. Quote with a porringerful of lie moderately warm, 357 00:20:00,480 --> 00:20:03,400 Speaker 1: and then you work that with two rounded wooden sticks. 358 00:20:03,400 --> 00:20:07,200 Speaker 1: So he describes this quote. With these two sticks, one 359 00:20:07,280 --> 00:20:10,560 Speaker 1: in each hand, turn and squeeze and knead the paste thoroughly, 360 00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:13,920 Speaker 1: exactly in the manner that you would need bread. Now, 361 00:20:13,920 --> 00:20:18,520 Speaker 1: I need to take a minute. I've never used sticks 362 00:20:18,520 --> 00:20:22,080 Speaker 1: to need bread. I picture you so much, just poking 363 00:20:22,119 --> 00:20:26,080 Speaker 1: at It's like like even in a bread machine. It's 364 00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:30,960 Speaker 1: a paddle like that. Uh okay, so sticks as you 365 00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:34,520 Speaker 1: would need bread. When you see that the lye is 366 00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:38,439 Speaker 1: thoroughly blue, pour it. Uh, pour it into a glazed basin. 367 00:20:38,640 --> 00:20:41,320 Speaker 1: Take the same quantity of fresh lie, pour it over 368 00:20:41,359 --> 00:20:43,399 Speaker 1: the paste, and work it with the sticks as before. 369 00:20:44,520 --> 00:20:47,280 Speaker 1: When this lie is very blue, pour it into another 370 00:20:47,320 --> 00:20:50,560 Speaker 1: glazed basin, and continue to do so for several days 371 00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:54,400 Speaker 1: until the paste no longer tinges the lye. Then throw 372 00:20:54,440 --> 00:20:58,120 Speaker 1: it away, for it is good for nothing. Hey, guess what, 373 00:20:58,560 --> 00:21:02,800 Speaker 1: You still don't have ultramarine yet. The substance in each 374 00:21:02,840 --> 00:21:05,000 Speaker 1: of these basins will be a different shade of blue 375 00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:07,800 Speaker 1: depending on when in the process you filled it, and 376 00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:10,400 Speaker 1: you need to combine them together based on how many 377 00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:13,159 Speaker 1: shades of ultramarine you are trying to make. You have 378 00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:15,480 Speaker 1: to be careful when you're doing this. The basins that 379 00:21:15,520 --> 00:21:18,560 Speaker 1: were filled first are the best quality, and quote the 380 00:21:18,640 --> 00:21:22,040 Speaker 1: last two extracts are worse than ashes. May your eyes 381 00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:25,000 Speaker 1: therefore be experienced so as not to spoil the good 382 00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:27,920 Speaker 1: azure by mixing it with the bad, and each day 383 00:21:28,080 --> 00:21:31,240 Speaker 1: remove the lye that the azure may dry. So from there, 384 00:21:31,320 --> 00:21:33,680 Speaker 1: Tanini offers some advice about what to do if none 385 00:21:33,720 --> 00:21:37,399 Speaker 1: of your ultramarine has the beautiful, deep color that you're expecting, 386 00:21:37,440 --> 00:21:39,600 Speaker 1: and essentially that's mixing it with a little bit of 387 00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:42,800 Speaker 1: crimson dye and allowing that all to dry again. Then 388 00:21:42,840 --> 00:21:46,520 Speaker 1: once you have your finished ultramarine, we get to the 389 00:21:46,560 --> 00:21:49,960 Speaker 1: part of this that is the unexpected sexism moment of 390 00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:53,439 Speaker 1: the show. Quote put it into a skinner purse, and 391 00:21:53,480 --> 00:21:55,840 Speaker 1: rejoice in it, for it is good and perfect. And 392 00:21:55,880 --> 00:21:58,000 Speaker 1: bear in mind that it is a rare gift to 393 00:21:58,040 --> 00:22:00,600 Speaker 1: know how to make it well. And you must know 394 00:22:00,720 --> 00:22:03,119 Speaker 1: that it is rather the art of maidens than of 395 00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:06,119 Speaker 1: men to make it, because they remain continually in the 396 00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:09,480 Speaker 1: house and are more patient and their hands more delicate. 397 00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:17,000 Speaker 1: But beware of old women. I'm just out here ruining 398 00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:21,280 Speaker 1: your acqua marine. Yeah, I don't think he'd be cool 399 00:22:21,280 --> 00:22:26,160 Speaker 1: with me making his socca marine or ultramarine either. Ultramarine 400 00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:29,680 Speaker 1: is beautiful and expensive and rare, so during the Middle 401 00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:31,960 Speaker 1: Ages and the Renaissance it was mostly used by the 402 00:22:32,119 --> 00:22:36,520 Speaker 1: most skilled, respected artists and artisans. Some artists would try 403 00:22:36,560 --> 00:22:39,560 Speaker 1: to make it stretch by saving their ultramarine for their 404 00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:42,639 Speaker 1: last final touches on whatever work they were making, and 405 00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:46,119 Speaker 1: others used ultramarine only on subjects that seemed worthy of it. 406 00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:48,439 Speaker 1: And this is when blue started to take on a 407 00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:52,840 Speaker 1: symbolic meaning, such as the color of the Virgin Mary's clothing. 408 00:22:53,359 --> 00:22:55,360 Speaker 1: And you can also see an example of this here 409 00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:59,040 Speaker 1: in the National Gallery of Art in Raphael's the album Madonna, 410 00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:01,760 Speaker 1: which was created about fifteen ten. That is on view 411 00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:04,359 Speaker 1: in Gallery twenty of the main floor of the West Building. 412 00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:06,280 Speaker 1: That is the other building from where we are tonight. 413 00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:08,000 Speaker 1: That is a very good reason for you to come 414 00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:10,639 Speaker 1: back to this amazing place. Yeah, don't try to go 415 00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:12,399 Speaker 1: over there right now. That building is closed in all 416 00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:16,280 Speaker 1: the trouble. Some artists, though dated, neither of these things, 417 00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:18,639 Speaker 1: to try to conserve it or make it stretch. An 418 00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:22,840 Speaker 1: example is Johannes Ermir, who just spent enormous amounts of 419 00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:27,440 Speaker 1: money on ultramarine and used it extensively everywhere. The vermires 420 00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:30,000 Speaker 1: are in Gallery fifty A of the West Building. Also 421 00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:35,840 Speaker 1: still the other building spectacular. They are beautiful. The vapors 422 00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:37,760 Speaker 1: over seat you can see them on the internet. Also, 423 00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:42,680 Speaker 1: thanks to its colossal expense and rarity, people were really 424 00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:46,480 Speaker 1: eager for some kind of substitute for ultramarine. It needed 425 00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:49,840 Speaker 1: to be equally good quality, but also cheaper and easier 426 00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:53,040 Speaker 1: to get. In eighteen twenty four, the French Society for 427 00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:56,720 Speaker 1: the Encouragement of National Industry offered a prize of six 428 00:23:56,760 --> 00:23:59,879 Speaker 1: thousand francs to whoever figured out an industrial process to 429 00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:04,000 Speaker 1: make synthetic ultramarine. And it also had to cost less 430 00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:07,120 Speaker 1: than three hundred francs a kilogram. And there were two 431 00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:10,119 Speaker 1: competing claims on this prize, which was ultimately awarded to 432 00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:13,359 Speaker 1: Jean Baptiste Guimet in eighteen twenty eight. And that is 433 00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:18,000 Speaker 1: made from cawlin sodium carbonate, bitumen and sulfur, prepared and 434 00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:20,879 Speaker 1: heated in a furnace or kiln. So once there was 435 00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:24,800 Speaker 1: this widely available, much less expensive blue pigment the color 436 00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:27,840 Speaker 1: blue became way more common in artwork and for more 437 00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:30,520 Speaker 1: mundane topics a lot of the time. By the start 438 00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:33,760 Speaker 1: of the Impressionist movement, most painters were working in synthetic 439 00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:37,240 Speaker 1: ultramarine rather than made from lapis lazuli. And then we 440 00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:40,000 Speaker 1: get all those beautiful monaise that are all full of 441 00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:44,000 Speaker 1: blue everywhere. To be clear, ultramarine was not the only 442 00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:46,760 Speaker 1: blue pigment that was in use at this point. Cobalt 443 00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:49,680 Speaker 1: blue was introduced in eighteen oh two and cerulean blue 444 00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:53,040 Speaker 1: in the eighteen sixties. Prussian blue had been developed back 445 00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:55,680 Speaker 1: at the start of the seventeen hundreds, quite by accident. 446 00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:59,200 Speaker 1: There is some fuzziness as to the details about this, 447 00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:02,040 Speaker 1: but the can dinventional story is that an alchemist named 448 00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:05,760 Speaker 1: Johann Kanrad Dipple was working with potash and animal blood, 449 00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:09,920 Speaker 1: and Johann Jakub Diesbach was a die maker who used 450 00:25:09,960 --> 00:25:13,320 Speaker 1: podash as part of making a red dye, and Deezbach 451 00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:16,720 Speaker 1: ran out and he either bought or borrowed some from Dipple, 452 00:25:17,040 --> 00:25:19,000 Speaker 1: and it was the potash that had been adulterated with 453 00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:21,760 Speaker 1: animal blood, and because of this, instead of making the 454 00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:25,000 Speaker 1: red dye that he was expecting, Diesbach wound up with 455 00:25:25,040 --> 00:25:28,080 Speaker 1: a vivid blue. I like to imagine that. He was like, 456 00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:30,440 Speaker 1: he won't notice if I just take some of it, 457 00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:35,200 Speaker 1: We'll give it. Why is this blue now? Dipple used 458 00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:37,879 Speaker 1: his knowledge of chemistry to work out how to replicate 459 00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:41,679 Speaker 1: dees Box results, and then another man, Johann Leonard Frisch, 460 00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:45,080 Speaker 1: also claimed to have invented this in a letter to 461 00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:49,040 Speaker 1: Gottfried Bilhelm Leibnitz in seventeen fifteen. Although these men tried 462 00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:51,359 Speaker 1: to keep their recipe a secret so they could cash 463 00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:55,040 Speaker 1: in on the incredibly lucrative blue pigment trade. John Woodward 464 00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:57,480 Speaker 1: published a method of making it in seventeen twenty four, 465 00:25:57,520 --> 00:25:59,840 Speaker 1: so anybody could make as much as they wanted, and 466 00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:03,320 Speaker 1: the development of Prussian blue, also sometimes called Berlin blue, 467 00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:06,120 Speaker 1: affected the use of blue in artwork much the way 468 00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:09,199 Speaker 1: that synthetic ultramarine did. For example, it led to a 469 00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:13,520 Speaker 1: whole style of woodblock prints in Japan called ai zurie. 470 00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:17,800 Speaker 1: Those were printed mostly or entirely in blue, and these 471 00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:21,000 Speaker 1: prints made use of Prussian blue as well as indigo 472 00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:24,960 Speaker 1: and other blue pigments, and a particularly famous example is 473 00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:29,480 Speaker 1: Katsushiko's Hoku Sis thirty six views of Mount Fuji, that 474 00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:32,840 Speaker 1: includes the Great Wave of Kanagawa and the first prints 475 00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:35,399 Speaker 1: of this series. We're all in blue, and blue is 476 00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:37,199 Speaker 1: really prominent in the rest of them that are not 477 00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:39,440 Speaker 1: those first ones that are one hundred percent blue. Yeah, 478 00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:42,760 Speaker 1: I love that whole series. And hey, we just mentioned Indigo, 479 00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:45,480 Speaker 1: which means that's a good segue into talking about the 480 00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:47,600 Speaker 1: mysteries of blue dyes, which are going to do after 481 00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:57,840 Speaker 1: another quick break. In a lot of the world, the 482 00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:02,560 Speaker 1: oldest surviving examples of dye textiles are dyed red, but 483 00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:04,480 Speaker 1: blue dye has been around for a pretty long time 484 00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:09,000 Speaker 1: as well. One example is ta Kellet, which is which 485 00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:12,280 Speaker 1: is mentioned repeatedly in Jewish scripture and was in use 486 00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:15,320 Speaker 1: at least thirty five hundred years ago. Knowledge of how 487 00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:18,360 Speaker 1: to make it was lost some time after the Romans 488 00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:21,760 Speaker 1: destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and today its sources 489 00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:25,320 Speaker 1: believed to be a secretion made by marine snails. Other 490 00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:29,400 Speaker 1: blue dyes are even older. In twenty sixteen, researchers announced 491 00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:32,320 Speaker 1: that they had dated a piece of cotton textile found 492 00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:35,280 Speaker 1: in Juaca, Peru, and found that it was sixty two 493 00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:38,920 Speaker 1: hundred years old. It had been dyed with indigo, making 494 00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:41,400 Speaker 1: it the oldest known use of indigo dye and one 495 00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:44,800 Speaker 1: of the oldest surviving cotton textiles. And there were other 496 00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:47,320 Speaker 1: blue dyes in the Americas as well. For example, there 497 00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:50,520 Speaker 1: is evidence that the Navajo Nation had a natively produced 498 00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:54,480 Speaker 1: blue plant dye, which was eventually replaced with indigo that 499 00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:57,240 Speaker 1: was introduced from further south in what is now Mexico. 500 00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:00,800 Speaker 1: So today indigo is more often a sociated with what's 501 00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:04,879 Speaker 1: now India, but the plant genus Indigofera includes hundreds of 502 00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:08,280 Speaker 1: flowering plants that live in tropical and subtropical areas all 503 00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:10,879 Speaker 1: around the world, and a lot of them can and 504 00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:14,560 Speaker 1: have been used to make purple and blue dyes. Indigo 505 00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:17,240 Speaker 1: has been used to make paints as well. For example, 506 00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:20,400 Speaker 1: Maya blue was used as a paint and pre colonial 507 00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:23,800 Speaker 1: meso America, and that was made from indigo and a 508 00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:27,560 Speaker 1: clay called paligorskite and at least one other ingredient who's 509 00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:30,160 Speaker 1: or at least one other ingredient whose identity is still 510 00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:33,679 Speaker 1: a little bit debated. And as another example of usage, 511 00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:37,800 Speaker 1: Peter Paul Rubens used both ultramarine and indigo in the 512 00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:40,560 Speaker 1: Fall of Phaeton, which is here at the National Gallery 513 00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:44,080 Speaker 1: of Art in the West Building's Gallery forty five. Melanie Gifford, 514 00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:47,840 Speaker 1: who is a research conservator here, described his process in 515 00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,640 Speaker 1: painting this to us in an email. She said, Rubens 516 00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,760 Speaker 1: used indigo paint indigo to paint the sky while working 517 00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:56,480 Speaker 1: on the painting in Italy in sixteen oh four, and 518 00:28:56,520 --> 00:28:58,920 Speaker 1: then when he revised the painting in Antwerp a few 519 00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:02,480 Speaker 1: years later, he switched to the brighter ultramarine. So when 520 00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:05,440 Speaker 1: it comes to making dye, the historical details of how 521 00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:08,280 Speaker 1: the plants were processed and how the dye was used 522 00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:11,400 Speaker 1: could really vary based on where the indigo was being grown. 523 00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:15,480 Speaker 1: Often the steps had a cultural or religious significance, and 524 00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:18,840 Speaker 1: regardless of the specifics, it tended to be a pretty 525 00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:23,280 Speaker 1: involved process that required a whole lot of plant material 526 00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:25,800 Speaker 1: to make a very small amount of dye. And as 527 00:29:25,800 --> 00:29:29,440 Speaker 1: an example, here is how indigo was processed in Surinam 528 00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:33,040 Speaker 1: as described by John Gabriel Studman quote. When all the 529 00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:35,520 Speaker 1: verdure is cut off, the whole crop is tied in 530 00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:38,200 Speaker 1: bunches and put into a very large tub with water, 531 00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:41,400 Speaker 1: covered over with very heavy logs of wood by way 532 00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:45,280 Speaker 1: of pressers. Thus kept it begins to ferment. In less 533 00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:48,200 Speaker 1: than eighteen hours, the water seems to boil and becomes 534 00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:51,320 Speaker 1: of a violet or garter blue color, extracting all the 535 00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:55,120 Speaker 1: grain or coloring matter from the plant. In this situation, 536 00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:57,680 Speaker 1: the liquor is drawn off into another tub, which is 537 00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:01,080 Speaker 1: something less. When the remaining trash is carefully picked up 538 00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:04,560 Speaker 1: and thrown away, and the very noxious smell of this refuse, 539 00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:08,360 Speaker 1: it is that occasions the peculiar unhealthiness which is always 540 00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:12,120 Speaker 1: incident to this business. Being now in the second tub, 541 00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,760 Speaker 1: the mash is agitated by paddles adapted for the purpose, 542 00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:21,080 Speaker 1: not just poky sticks, till by a skillful maceration, all 543 00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:24,280 Speaker 1: the grain separates from the water, the first sinking like 544 00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,360 Speaker 1: mud to the bottom, while the ladder separates, while the 545 00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:31,040 Speaker 1: latter appears clear and transparent on the surface, this water 546 00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:34,560 Speaker 1: being carefully removed till near the colored mass, the remaining 547 00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:37,840 Speaker 1: liquor is drawn oft into a third tub to let 548 00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:41,440 Speaker 1: what indigo it may contain also settle in the bottom, 549 00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:45,000 Speaker 1: after which the last drops of water here being also removed, 550 00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:48,480 Speaker 1: the sediment or indigo is put into proper vessels to dry, 551 00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:51,920 Speaker 1: where being divested of its last remaining moisture and formed 552 00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:55,640 Speaker 1: into small, round and oblong square pieces. It has become 553 00:30:55,800 --> 00:31:01,080 Speaker 1: a beautiful dark blue and fit for exportation. All these 554 00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:04,800 Speaker 1: I'm like, do we need the blue? Though I know 555 00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,360 Speaker 1: I would be, I'd be like any other color. I'm out, 556 00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:10,160 Speaker 1: I can't. Fortunately, it's a day we have chemistry, and 557 00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:12,960 Speaker 1: chemists do these things rather than having I mean, you 558 00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:15,520 Speaker 1: can still mash a lot of plants and get indigo dye. 559 00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:20,280 Speaker 1: People do that, some of them for fun. As a 560 00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:22,920 Speaker 1: cool side note, when you dye something with true indigo 561 00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:25,800 Speaker 1: made from indigo plants, it is green when it comes 562 00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,120 Speaker 1: out of the vat, and then it turns blue while 563 00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:32,320 Speaker 1: it's exposed to the air. Magic chemistry. It was really cool. 564 00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:36,080 Speaker 1: Indigo was being cultivated in the Indian subcontinent by two 565 00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:40,160 Speaker 1: thousand BCE, and indigo became an important part of the 566 00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:44,040 Speaker 1: spice trade. During processing, the plant's leaves were pulverized into 567 00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:46,720 Speaker 1: a paste and the extracted dye was shaped into blocks 568 00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:50,200 Speaker 1: and dried. And these resulting blocks were so stone like 569 00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:53,120 Speaker 1: that when they arrived in Europe people actually assumed that 570 00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:56,800 Speaker 1: they were some kind of stone similar to lappis. Indigo 571 00:31:56,960 --> 00:32:00,960 Speaker 1: wasn't that common in Europe until after an Indian navigator 572 00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:03,560 Speaker 1: led Vasco da Gama to a sea root to the 573 00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:07,160 Speaker 1: Indian subcontinent in fourteen ninety eight, and before that point, 574 00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:10,400 Speaker 1: wad was more commonly used as a blue dye in Europe. 575 00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:14,520 Speaker 1: This was also known as pastel. That can make reading 576 00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:18,000 Speaker 1: old die manuals a little confusing for people who aren't 577 00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:20,640 Speaker 1: familiar with that term being used in that way rather 578 00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:25,080 Speaker 1: than for crayons made out of powdery pigment or white colors. 579 00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:29,440 Speaker 1: Woad is also a flowering plant that requires an involved 580 00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:32,960 Speaker 1: process to be made into a dye. Ethel M. Merritt's, 581 00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:35,960 Speaker 1: a book on vegetable dyes, which was published in nineteen nineteen, 582 00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:39,120 Speaker 1: described it this way. Quote The leaves, when cut, are 583 00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:42,040 Speaker 1: reduced to a paste, kept in heaps for about fifteen 584 00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:44,960 Speaker 1: days to ferment, and formed into balls which are dried 585 00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,840 Speaker 1: in the sun. These balls are subjected to a further 586 00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:51,480 Speaker 1: fermentation of nine weeks before being used by the dyer. 587 00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:56,240 Speaker 1: Seems less complicated, but also nine weeks of further fermentation. Well, 588 00:32:56,280 --> 00:33:00,280 Speaker 1: it could be forever, So it could be forever when 589 00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:03,880 Speaker 1: the When indigo became more accessible in Europe after fourteen 590 00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:07,160 Speaker 1: ninety eight, it really upended the dye industry. This was 591 00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:10,000 Speaker 1: at a time when various crafts and trades are being 592 00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:12,720 Speaker 1: regulated through the guild system, and a lot of europe 593 00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:17,840 Speaker 1: dyer's guilds had very strong opinions about this sudden availability 594 00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:21,760 Speaker 1: of indigo dye. Although processing the indigo plants into a 595 00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:24,840 Speaker 1: dye was very difficult and time consuming, it was getting 596 00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:28,080 Speaker 1: to Europe ready to use, rather than people in Europe 597 00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:30,680 Speaker 1: having to be the ones to make it ready to use. 598 00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:33,440 Speaker 1: The resulting dye was also a lot easier to work 599 00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:36,720 Speaker 1: with than woad, and it made a better quality blue overall. 600 00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:40,440 Speaker 1: As indigo dye became more available, guilds and governments in 601 00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:44,160 Speaker 1: Europe had to negotiate a sudden shift in supply and demand. 602 00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:47,640 Speaker 1: Blue had already been increasing in popularity as people had 603 00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:51,240 Speaker 1: gotten better at processing woad into a good quality dye, 604 00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,240 Speaker 1: but then with this influx of indigo, more people wanted 605 00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:58,000 Speaker 1: blue cloth for everything from clothing to coats of arms, 606 00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:00,360 Speaker 1: and it got to the point that in place Plas, 607 00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:03,840 Speaker 1: where dyeing and weaving had been completely different trades governed 608 00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:07,240 Speaker 1: by totally different guilds, weavers started to be allowed to 609 00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:10,040 Speaker 1: dye their own cloth, but only if they were dying 610 00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:14,720 Speaker 1: at blue. Meanwhile, indigo was being banned in various parts 611 00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:17,960 Speaker 1: of Europe as dyers tried to protect protect their trade, 612 00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:22,400 Speaker 1: and regions whose economies depended on growing and processing wode 613 00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:26,239 Speaker 1: tried to protect their livelihoods. Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph the 614 00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:29,760 Speaker 1: Second published an edict against indigo in fifteen seventy seven, 615 00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:35,000 Speaker 1: in which he called it cheating, corrosive, devouring and diabolical. 616 00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:42,160 Speaker 1: Seems pretty harsh. Indigo was prohibited in parts of France 617 00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:46,120 Speaker 1: and Germany in fifteen ninety eight, in Saxony in sixteen fifty, 618 00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:48,920 Speaker 1: and then Rome prohibited the use of indigo throughout Italy 619 00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:52,400 Speaker 1: in sixteen fifty two. I kind of agree with Rudolph 620 00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:55,000 Speaker 1: the Second. I just indigo's not for me. I don't 621 00:34:57,120 --> 00:34:59,280 Speaker 1: no shade to anybody who loves indigo. I'm just kidding. 622 00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:02,480 Speaker 1: It's fine, it shouldn' illegal. On the other hand, Queen 623 00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:05,920 Speaker 1: Elizabeth the First banned the cultivation of wod in England 624 00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:09,440 Speaker 1: in fifteen eighty five. Although people disparagingly say that this 625 00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:12,360 Speaker 1: was an issue because she thought it smelled bad, what 626 00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:15,440 Speaker 1: this was really about was being motivated by fears that 627 00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:19,160 Speaker 1: food crops were being displaced by this newly cultivated and 628 00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:23,160 Speaker 1: lucrative wod. So these laws didn't stop this spread of 629 00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:26,000 Speaker 1: indigo into Europe or the rise of blue as a 630 00:35:26,040 --> 00:35:29,759 Speaker 1: popular color in textiles and art, both because of the 631 00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:33,319 Speaker 1: availability of indigo and because of the introductions of those 632 00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:36,480 Speaker 1: blue pigments that we had talked about earlier. Before the 633 00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:41,000 Speaker 1: fourteenth century, about seventy five percent of the dying manuals 634 00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:43,799 Speaker 1: in Europe had been about the color red, and then 635 00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:46,480 Speaker 1: blue became more and more common in these manuals from 636 00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:50,359 Speaker 1: the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries with the increased availability 637 00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:54,720 Speaker 1: of indigo and other blue pigments, and eventually blue overtook red, 638 00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:59,160 Speaker 1: and apprentice dyers when they did their masterpiece to show 639 00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:01,399 Speaker 1: that they were ready to practiced their craft on their own, 640 00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:04,239 Speaker 1: had to do their masterpiece in blue d eye rather 641 00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:09,000 Speaker 1: than red. The consequences of this skyrocketing popularity of indigo 642 00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:12,400 Speaker 1: blue in Europe were far reaching. Indigo was one of 643 00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:15,160 Speaker 1: the primary exports of what is now India, so as 644 00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:20,080 Speaker 1: Britain colonized the Indian subcontinent, British colonial policies became tightly 645 00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:23,879 Speaker 1: intertwined with the indigo industry and This affected everything from 646 00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:27,480 Speaker 1: human rights to the movement for India's independence from Britain, 647 00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:30,480 Speaker 1: as farmers who were forced to grow indigo demanded to 648 00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,400 Speaker 1: be allowed to grow food crops instead, and then on 649 00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:36,680 Speaker 1: the total other side of the planet. Indigo became a 650 00:36:36,719 --> 00:36:39,239 Speaker 1: major crop in parts of the Americas, where it was 651 00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:43,239 Speaker 1: being grown and harvested and processed by enslaved laborers. The 652 00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:46,279 Speaker 1: description that we read earlier on how indigo was being 653 00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:49,319 Speaker 1: processed in Surinam actually came from a book that was 654 00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:53,839 Speaker 1: titled Quote Narrative of Five Years Expedition against the Revolted 655 00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:58,360 Speaker 1: Negroes of Surinam and that recounted Stedman's experiences in Surinam 656 00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:01,680 Speaker 1: from seventeen seventy two to seven. Eventeen seventy seven and 657 00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:05,279 Speaker 1: much of the Caribbean. Indigo was later replaced by sugarcane, 658 00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:07,880 Speaker 1: and it became a major cash crop in South Carolina, 659 00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:12,440 Speaker 1: where it was introduced by Eliza Lucas Pinkney. Pinkney relied 660 00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:16,440 Speaker 1: on the knowledge and skill of enslaved labors to refine 661 00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,840 Speaker 1: how the indigo there was being cultivated and processed, and 662 00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,960 Speaker 1: synthetic indigo was developed in the late nineteenth century, but 663 00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:25,399 Speaker 1: it wasn't until the early twentieth century that it really 664 00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:29,000 Speaker 1: just became super practical to make. Today's synthetic indigo is 665 00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:32,839 Speaker 1: almost entirely has almost entirely replaced indigo that is made 666 00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:35,759 Speaker 1: from plant sources. And there are just so many other 667 00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:39,239 Speaker 1: notable uses of blue that we could talk about in 668 00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:42,400 Speaker 1: this show today. We haven't at all touched on blue 669 00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:45,839 Speaker 1: glass or blue ceramics. There's the cobalt that was used 670 00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:49,239 Speaker 1: to make that was used to make blue glass and glazes, 671 00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:52,520 Speaker 1: or the blue and white porcelain that was so popular 672 00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:55,480 Speaker 1: in China during the Yuan and being dynasties, or the 673 00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:58,879 Speaker 1: many attempts to try to replicate that look that were 674 00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:02,440 Speaker 1: made in Eue. In North America, there is blue jasper 675 00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:05,440 Speaker 1: ware that was developed by Josiah Wedgwood. If we had 676 00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:09,279 Speaker 1: taken a different focus, we could have had a totally 677 00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:12,800 Speaker 1: different look at the color blue today rather than having 678 00:38:12,840 --> 00:38:18,200 Speaker 1: the focus beyond paints and dies. And that's the mysteries 679 00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:21,680 Speaker 1: of the color blue. So thank you to the National 680 00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:25,279 Speaker 1: Gallery of Art, Washington for inviting us to be here tonight. Yeah, 681 00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:26,960 Speaker 1: it's been such a delight and we get to do 682 00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:29,560 Speaker 1: it all again in a minute. Yeah, so we especially 683 00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:33,120 Speaker 1: wanted the thank Sherry Williams, who was the manager of 684 00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:37,000 Speaker 1: community programming, and Christina Brown who's a publicist, and then 685 00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:40,040 Speaker 1: Melanie Gifford and Chelsea Usuza who were the people that 686 00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:42,799 Speaker 1: we talked to in advance of tonight. And then we 687 00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:44,719 Speaker 1: also want to thank the folks that we have been 688 00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:48,560 Speaker 1: working with tonight. So Kathleen walking around with us a lot, yep, 689 00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:50,759 Speaker 1: taking care of us. Robert who's here in the front, 690 00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:52,960 Speaker 1: took great care of us leading up to this, and 691 00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:55,160 Speaker 1: then I think Olivia's back in the back doing sound 692 00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:59,520 Speaker 1: making me not sound like a cackling hen ah. So 693 00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:07,600 Speaker 1: thanks so much everyone for coming. Yeah, thank you again 694 00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:10,640 Speaker 1: to the National Gallery of our Washington for inviting us 695 00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:12,960 Speaker 1: to be part of their NNGA Nights programming. And thanks 696 00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:14,960 Speaker 1: so much to everybody who came to see the show. 697 00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:17,840 Speaker 1: We had two really fun crowds. Yeah, we had a 698 00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:20,960 Speaker 1: great time doing both of those. We have not done 699 00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:23,799 Speaker 1: a show back to back like that before, so that 700 00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:26,200 Speaker 1: was a new experience and it was a delight. We 701 00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:29,040 Speaker 1: had so much fun. It was I also have a 702 00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:31,640 Speaker 1: tiny bit of listener mail to take us out that's 703 00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:36,120 Speaker 1: related tangentially to what we talked about at the National 704 00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:38,680 Speaker 1: Gallery of Art. It is from Rachel. Rachel says, Hi, guys, 705 00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:41,840 Speaker 1: listening to your podcast on the Guatemalan coup as I 706 00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:45,280 Speaker 1: type and coming to see you at NNGA Nights on Thursday. 707 00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:48,760 Speaker 1: That's not actually the connection. Connection is what comes next. 708 00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:52,360 Speaker 1: I paused in your mention of the decreasing importance of 709 00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:55,200 Speaker 1: cocaineil as a crop. Maybe you all already know this, 710 00:39:55,320 --> 00:39:58,200 Speaker 1: but cocaaneil is a tiny insect that grows on cacti 711 00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:00,960 Speaker 1: in Central and South America and is harvested for the 712 00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:05,160 Speaker 1: red pigment that it produces. I'm a natural yarn dyer, 713 00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,279 Speaker 1: and cocaineial gives bright reds and pinks. I'm attaching some 714 00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:11,120 Speaker 1: of the yarn I've dyed with cocaineil as an example. 715 00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:15,040 Speaker 1: Love you both, Rachel. I sent Rachel a note back 716 00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:18,040 Speaker 1: to this, also letting her know, and I'll also now 717 00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:21,640 Speaker 1: let other listeners know. We did a podcast called A 718 00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:25,440 Speaker 1: Brief History of Colors way back in the past. We 719 00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:27,800 Speaker 1: talked a bit about cocain eil in that one, because 720 00:40:28,239 --> 00:40:30,840 Speaker 1: our live show at the National Gallery of Art was 721 00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:33,680 Speaker 1: just about the color blue and its history, and our 722 00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:36,000 Speaker 1: brief history of colors is more like a broad look 723 00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:39,799 Speaker 1: at different colors and dyes and the earliest examples of 724 00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:43,759 Speaker 1: different colors that people figured out how to use as 725 00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:45,400 Speaker 1: paints and dyes and things like that. And one of 726 00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:48,279 Speaker 1: the things we talk about is cocain eial And it 727 00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:51,359 Speaker 1: does sound a little weird to talk about cocaneil as 728 00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:55,120 Speaker 1: a crop because, as Rachel said in the letter, it's 729 00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:59,799 Speaker 1: little insects, but because that was what the export product was, 730 00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:04,200 Speaker 1: still sort of looped into the crops that Guatemala was producing, 731 00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:08,640 Speaker 1: even though like the cactus that the insect grows on 732 00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:12,080 Speaker 1: isn't really like the crop as you think of it, 733 00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:14,239 Speaker 1: even though it's what's being grown, if that makes sense. 734 00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:17,880 Speaker 1: So thank you Rachel for that note. Thanks again everyone 735 00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:20,640 Speaker 1: who came out to that show. 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