WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: The Color Blue

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<v Speaker 1>Happy Saturday.

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<v Speaker 2>This week on Unearthed, we talked about Anatolia's oldest known

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<v Speaker 2>indigo dyed textile, and that reminded me that once we

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<v Speaker 2>did an entire episode about the history of the color blue,

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<v Speaker 2>which of course talked about indigo as a die. This

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<v Speaker 2>one is a live show that we did at the

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<v Speaker 2>National Gallery of Art in Washington, d C. In September

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<v Speaker 2>of twenty nineteen, and this episode came out on October sixteenth.

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<v Speaker 1>Twenty nineteen.

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<v Speaker 2>Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a

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<v Speaker 2>production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 1>Hello and welcome to a podcast. I'm Tracy V.

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<v Speaker 2>Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. Today we are sharing our

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<v Speaker 2>live show from the National Gallery of Art Washington, which

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<v Speaker 2>we did in September as part of their MGA Nights programming.

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<v Speaker 2>And we actually did this show twice over the course

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<v Speaker 2>of the evening so that more people who attended that event,

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<v Speaker 2>which is very popular, could get in and see it.

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<v Speaker 2>And so today we are sharing the first of those two.

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<v Speaker 2>We're not going to share the second one because it

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<v Speaker 2>would effectively be the exact same show.

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<v Speaker 1>Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracey V. Wilson.

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<v Speaker 2>And I'm Holly Frye. Blue is my favorite color, and

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<v Speaker 2>that makes me not special. Blue is the most popular

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<v Speaker 2>color and a lot of the world. For example, there

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<v Speaker 2>was a survey that was conducted in twenty fifteen that

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<v Speaker 2>polled people in Britain, Germany, the United States, Australia, China,

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<v Speaker 2>Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia, and in all

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<v Speaker 2>of those places, blue was the most popular color by

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<v Speaker 2>a significant margin. So I am not alone in the

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<v Speaker 2>world in my love of blue. It can also feel

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<v Speaker 2>like we're really surrounded by blue all the time, because

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<v Speaker 2>we have the blue sky and the reflection of the

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<v Speaker 2>sky in the water, and then things like blue jens,

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<v Speaker 2>and then all the blue stuff that people buy because

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<v Speaker 2>it's everyone's favorite color. And yet a lot of ancient

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<v Speaker 2>languages did not have a word for blue at all.

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<v Speaker 2>Some languages still don't. For a lot of human history,

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<v Speaker 2>the process of making blue dyes and paints has been

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<v Speaker 2>pretty prohibitively expensive and complicated if people knew how to

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<v Speaker 2>do it at all. So blue used to be really rare.

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<v Speaker 2>And today we're going to talk about blues progression from

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<v Speaker 2>something that there wasn't even a name for because it

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<v Speaker 2>was so rare to something that seems really ubiquitous. And

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<v Speaker 2>like Tracy just said, there were a lot of ancient

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<v Speaker 2>languages that just had no word for blue whatsoever. And

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<v Speaker 2>this is something that folks started figuring out thanks to

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<v Speaker 2>William Ewart Gladstone, who spent four terms as Prime Minister

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<v Speaker 2>of the United Kingdom between eighteen sixty eight and eighteen

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<v Speaker 2>ninety four, but he had also studied classics at Oxford,

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<v Speaker 2>and ten years before he became Prime minister, he published

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<v Speaker 2>a six hundred plus page book that was called Study

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<v Speaker 2>on Homer and the Homeric Age, and it had a

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<v Speaker 2>whole section in it titled Homer's Perceptions and.

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<v Speaker 1>Use of Color.

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<v Speaker 2>I really like that one of the jobs that you

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<v Speaker 2>can have had before being Prime minister as classicist.

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<v Speaker 1>That seems cool.

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<v Speaker 2>I feel like if we had more of that and

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<v Speaker 2>less of other things, you'd be in great shape. So

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<v Speaker 2>in this section of the book, Gladstone outlined what he

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<v Speaker 2>interpreted as signs of immaturity. That was one of his

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<v Speaker 2>words for it, in Homer's ability to differentiate color. And

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<v Speaker 2>here is what he said. One the paucity of his colors, two,

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<v Speaker 2>the use of the same word to denote not only

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<v Speaker 2>different hues or tints of the same color, but colors which,

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<v Speaker 2>according to us, are essentially different. Three the description of

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<v Speaker 2>the same object under epithets of color fundamentally disagreeing with

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<v Speaker 2>one another, for the vast predominance of the most crude

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<v Speaker 2>and elemental forms of color black and white over every other,

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<v Speaker 2>and the decided tendency to treat other colors is simply

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<v Speaker 2>intermediates between those two extremes.

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<v Speaker 1>Five.

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<v Speaker 2>The slight use of color and Homer as compared with

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<v Speaker 2>other elements of beauty for the purposes of poetic effect,

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<v Speaker 2>and its absence in certain cases we might confidently expect it.

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<v Speaker 2>So in other words, Homer's use of color descriptors seemed

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<v Speaker 2>kind of contradictory and frankly just haphazard. Homer's works mostly

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<v Speaker 2>referred to things as black or white, and sometimes referred

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<v Speaker 2>to the same object using different color descriptors at different times,

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<v Speaker 2>or he would describe things with strange colors, like he

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<v Speaker 2>described both blood and a rainbow with a word that

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<v Speaker 2>translates essentially as violet, or calling the sea wine dark,

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<v Speaker 2>which I know maybe he got criticized for, but it

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<v Speaker 2>sounds very poetic to me, Homer's writing also seems to

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<v Speaker 2>have had no word that specifically meant blue. And side note,

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<v Speaker 2>there is actually a lot of debate as well about

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<v Speaker 2>whether all of the writing that is attributed to Homer

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<v Speaker 2>now was really the wor one person, or if there

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<v Speaker 2>are multiple people involved that all kind of fell into

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<v Speaker 2>this umbrella.

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<v Speaker 1>But that is a whole different.

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<v Speaker 2>Story and way outside the scope of what we're talking

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<v Speaker 2>about tonight.

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<v Speaker 1>But just keep that in mind as we talk about

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<v Speaker 1>Homer's work.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, regardless of whether Homer was one person or

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<v Speaker 2>many people. This whole conversation led to some discussion about

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<v Speaker 2>whether people in the Homeric age were color blind or

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<v Speaker 2>otherwise we're perceiving color color differently than cited people in

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<v Speaker 2>the nineteenth century when Gladstone was writing, and we'll get

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<v Speaker 2>back to that idea. This also led to further study

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<v Speaker 2>about how ancient writers were describing and naming colors, and

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<v Speaker 2>it quickly became clear that other ancient writings also had

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<v Speaker 2>odd uses of color, including not having a word for

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<v Speaker 2>the color blue. Researchers studied these language patterns for decades,

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<v Speaker 2>and then in nineteen sixty nine, Brent Berlin and Paul

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<v Speaker 2>Key published basic color Terms, their universality and evolution, and

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<v Speaker 2>basic color terms are essentially single words that can be

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<v Speaker 2>applied to a wide range of objects and are understood

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<v Speaker 2>by most native speakers of a given language. So in English,

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<v Speaker 2>for example, there are all kinds of words describing different

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<v Speaker 2>shades and hues, but there are actually only eleven basic

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<v Speaker 2>color terms, and those are red, yellow, green, blue, black, white, gray, orange, brown, pink,

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<v Speaker 2>and thank goodness, purple. One of the important things about

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<v Speaker 2>basic color terms is that there's an agreed on shade

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<v Speaker 2>that they are describing. So even though violet was one

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<v Speaker 2>of the words that Homer was using, the fact that

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<v Speaker 2>it was sort of being applied to seemingly random objects

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<v Speaker 2>would mean that that wasn't really functioning as a basic

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<v Speaker 2>color word or a basic color term. All the languages

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<v Speaker 2>that Berlin in k studied had a minimum of two

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<v Speaker 2>basic color terms black and white, sometimes described as light

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<v Speaker 2>and dark, and here is something that I think it's

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<v Speaker 2>really cool. And languages that had three basic color terms,

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<v Speaker 2>the third one was red, and languages with four the

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<v Speaker 2>fourth one was either yellow or green, and then the

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<v Speaker 2>other of those was the fifth one. In languages that

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<v Speaker 2>had five it's only when a language had six basic

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<v Speaker 2>color terms that it had a color term for blue,

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<v Speaker 2>and then from there the pattern didn't hold up much

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<v Speaker 2>Farther There was brown as the seventh color, and then

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<v Speaker 2>colors beyond that just followed in no particular order. And

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<v Speaker 2>this nineteen sixty nine work had studied a relatively small

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<v Speaker 2>group of bilingual people, all of whom spoke English, and

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<v Speaker 2>most of them lived in industrial areas, and this naturally

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<v Speaker 2>led to a lot of discussion and questions about whether

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<v Speaker 2>these results could really be considered universal. So in the

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<v Speaker 2>late nineteen seventies, Berlin and k started working on their

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<v Speaker 2>World Color Survey, which asked more than twenty five hundred

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<v Speaker 2>native speakers of unwritten languages around the world to identify

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<v Speaker 2>various colors. Berlin and k published a monograph on this

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<v Speaker 2>in July of two thousand and nine, and they reported

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<v Speaker 2>that more than eighty percent of the world's languages followed

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<v Speaker 2>this pattern of black and white and then and then

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<v Speaker 2>yellow or green, and then the other one of those,

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<v Speaker 2>and then blue. And these ancient languages without a word

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<v Speaker 2>for blue seems to follow these same patterns. A lot

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<v Speaker 2>of them have the black, white, and red and that's

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<v Speaker 2>it sounds like my wedding, not at all like Game

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<v Speaker 2>of Thrones, and way before that. There has been a

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<v Speaker 2>lot of research since then into why this pattern actually

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<v Speaker 2>exists and how to interpret all of this information. And

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<v Speaker 2>there's also been research into whether that pattern is evidence

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<v Speaker 2>that ancient people saw fewer colors, like William Ewert Gladstone suggested,

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<v Speaker 2>as well as whether people living today whose languages have

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<v Speaker 2>fewer color terms are actually perceiving fewer colors or if

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<v Speaker 2>they're perceiving them differently. So a lot of that research

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<v Speaker 2>is really contradictory and inconclusive. There are lots of questions

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<v Speaker 2>that we don't have one hundred percent agreed upon answers

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<v Speaker 2>to yet, like are their physiological differences in the eyes

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<v Speaker 2>or brains of people who speak languages that include different

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<v Speaker 2>numbers of basic color terms. There's some research that suggests yes,

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<v Speaker 2>and other research that suggests to know if there are

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<v Speaker 2>physiological differences, are those differences a result of the language

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<v Speaker 2>differences or is it the other way around? How much

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<v Speaker 2>of this is physiological, how much is socially constructed? Are

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<v Speaker 2>colors as sighted people perceive them universal or are they relative?

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<v Speaker 2>And it might seem a little bit weird that there

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<v Speaker 2>are so many unanswered questions about colors, because it's really

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<v Speaker 2>easy to imagine that colors are unchanging physical traits.

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<v Speaker 1>I know what purple looks like. It's purple. But it's true.

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<v Speaker 2>There's an element of physics to all of this. Isaac

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<v Speaker 2>Newton started working with the visible spectrum of light in

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<v Speaker 2>the sixteen sixties, and he used a prism to refract

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<v Speaker 2>sunlight into a spectrum that he described as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,

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<v Speaker 2>and violet. But before this, societies around the world had

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<v Speaker 2>their own ideas about what light was made of and

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<v Speaker 2>where colors came from, and even Newton's work, which became

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<v Speaker 2>the foundation of how we all talk about color and light,

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<v Speaker 2>was influenced by his own preconceived ideas. For example, the

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<v Speaker 2>reason that there is an indigo in his list is

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<v Speaker 2>because he just thought there needed to be seven colors. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>there's seven days of the week, seven notes at a musical scale.

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<v Speaker 2>Seven's like an auspicious number. Clearly there have to be

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<v Speaker 2>seven colors. So, in other words, colors just aren't static,

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<v Speaker 2>unchanging traits that exist all by themselves. Our understanding of

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<v Speaker 2>colors is socially constructed, and the way people describe the

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<v Speaker 2>colors around them can vary dramatically based on language and culture.

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<v Speaker 2>Societies give colors their own symbolic meanings, and those meetings

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<v Speaker 2>change and evolve over time in response to all kinds

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<v Speaker 2>of factors, including what pigments are available, how expensive those

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<v Speaker 2>pigments are, whether there were laws about how they could

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<v Speaker 2>be used, and what's in fashion at the moment. So

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<v Speaker 2>when we look back into colors in the past, this

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<v Speaker 2>can of course get really complicated. An ancient culture may

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<v Speaker 2>have had no word for blue, and if they did,

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<v Speaker 2>it might have been used for a different range of

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<v Speaker 2>shades that an English speaker living today might imagine. And

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<v Speaker 2>even if we have examples of that culture's physical objects

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<v Speaker 2>like jewelry or textiles or works of art, their colors

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<v Speaker 2>can change over time thanks to things like fading and

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<v Speaker 2>oxidation and just dirt getting on them. And exactly how

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<v Speaker 2>they fade and shift can really vary depending on what

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<v Speaker 2>an object is made of, what pigment was used to

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<v Speaker 2>color it, the binders that were used with those pigments,

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<v Speaker 2>how it was handled since then, and what pollutants have

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<v Speaker 2>been in the air, and on and on. There's so

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<v Speaker 2>many factors.

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<v Speaker 1>On top of all of.

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<v Speaker 2>That, when we look at a work of art, especially

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<v Speaker 2>a work of art that was made long ago in

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<v Speaker 2>the past, we are almost certainly seeing it under totally

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<v Speaker 2>different lighting conditions than the artists who than the artists

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<v Speaker 2>who created had when they were making it. And one

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<v Speaker 2>of the hypotheses for why so many ancient languages did

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<v Speaker 2>not have a word for blue is that they just

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<v Speaker 2>didn't need one. Most ancient cultures did not have a

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<v Speaker 2>way to make blue pigment. And while there is blue

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<v Speaker 2>in nature, of course, thanks to things like flowers and

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<v Speaker 2>berries and butterflies and birds and the sky, it's not

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<v Speaker 2>nearly as common as other colors are. And we're going

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<v Speaker 2>to talk about how people worked out a way to

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<v Speaker 2>make their own blue. After we first pause for what

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<v Speaker 2>will be a little sponsor break, we're.

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<v Speaker 1>Going to talk a bit about pains and pigments.

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<v Speaker 2>If you look at some paleolithic rock art and cave art,

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<v Speaker 2>you will notice a pretty similar use of color no

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<v Speaker 2>matter where in the world you're looking, because the palette

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<v Speaker 2>tends to be really earthy. There's lots of brown and

0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.880
<v Speaker 2>yellow and red and black, and there are naturally occurring

0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.040
<v Speaker 2>pigments that produce these colors and are pretty abundant in

0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:53.800
<v Speaker 2>a lot of the world, like ochre, which is made

0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:58.000
<v Speaker 2>from iron oxide and various earthy materials. Different cultures have

0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:01.679
<v Speaker 2>had their own ceremonial and some methods of preparing and

0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:04.360
<v Speaker 2>using these pigments, but basically you can really just grind

0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:06.440
<v Speaker 2>up some rocks and put water in there and paint

0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:08.800
<v Speaker 2>with it. Do you ever have a teacher like an

0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.040
<v Speaker 2>our teacher, Have you do that? I think so probably

0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:13.000
<v Speaker 2>not a lot. Uh, you can't really do that with

0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.640
<v Speaker 2>blue though. It turns out there are not many blue minerals,

0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:19.120
<v Speaker 2>and the ones that do exist typically cannot just be

0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.000
<v Speaker 2>crushed and mixed with water like you could do with ochre.

0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:25.320
<v Speaker 2>Mashing up blueberries or blue flowers might seem like a

0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:27.200
<v Speaker 2>great idea, and you could try to use that.

0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:29.280
<v Speaker 1>And paint with it, but it's actually.

0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:31.120
<v Speaker 2>Usually going to turn out kind of brownish or gray,

0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:33.760
<v Speaker 2>and often it's also going to fade really quickly, so

0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:35.760
<v Speaker 2>you're going to lose that blue color you were chasing.

0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.560
<v Speaker 2>And ancient peoples could carve objects out of blue stones

0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:43.040
<v Speaker 2>or minerals or shells, or make decorative objects with feathers,

0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:47.040
<v Speaker 2>but that was about it. Even substances like lapis lazulie,

0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.040
<v Speaker 2>which were eventually made into pigments, were first used just

0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:53.240
<v Speaker 2>primarily to make carvings and inlays, rather than actually trying

0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.880
<v Speaker 2>to use them as dyes or paints. So that changed

0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.720
<v Speaker 2>with the development of the first synthetic pigment, which happened

0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.120
<v Speaker 2>by a about thirty one hundred BCE that came to

0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:07.080
<v Speaker 2>be known as Egyptian blue, and according to Roman writer Vitruvius,

0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.240
<v Speaker 2>it was made from sand, copper, and natron, which is

0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:15.960
<v Speaker 2>a naturally occurring sodium carbonate compound. Modern experiments have pinpointed

0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:20.040
<v Speaker 2>the likely ingredients as silica, copper, and calcium. Usually the

0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:24.320
<v Speaker 2>silica probably came from sand and the calcium came from limestone,

0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.680
<v Speaker 2>although it was also possible for sand to include calcite

0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.960
<v Speaker 2>or flex of limestone itself. So these ingredients had to

0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:33.800
<v Speaker 2>be mixed with a small amount of alkali and then

0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:36.520
<v Speaker 2>be heated to between eight hundred and fifteen one thousand

0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.720
<v Speaker 2>degrees celsius. And when we were running through this script

0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:44.240
<v Speaker 2>earlier today, I went, is that right? That seems incredibly hot?

0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.640
<v Speaker 2>And I was in my hotel room as we were

0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.920
<v Speaker 2>getting ready confirming it with like five different sources.

0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:53.520
<v Speaker 1>Yes, it was that hot, which just seems like it

0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:55.800
<v Speaker 1>would all be on fire to me. But that's why

0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:56.800
<v Speaker 1>I'm not a scientist.

0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:00.920
<v Speaker 2>We don't really know who worked out recipe or what

0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.320
<v Speaker 2>their process was for figuring it out.

0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:05.440
<v Speaker 1>We don't know if it was an accidental.

0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:07.280
<v Speaker 2>Discovery or if it was the result of a more

0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.800
<v Speaker 2>methodical process to try to get to this final result.

0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.280
<v Speaker 2>It may have been developed even outside of Egypt, possibly

0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:17.200
<v Speaker 2>in Mesopotamia. Yeah, it could have been anywhere on a

0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:21.320
<v Speaker 2>spectrum between like the kids through some sand in the kiln.

0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:24.400
<v Speaker 1>To I'm going to figure this out, like no idea.

0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:25.040
<v Speaker 1>It's a lot of room.

0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.119
<v Speaker 2>Egyptian blue was used in Egyptian art from its discovery

0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:32.880
<v Speaker 2>until the end of the Roman Era, and there is

0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:36.160
<v Speaker 2>still a lot of artwork that exists today that was

0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.760
<v Speaker 2>made with it. The blue coloring isn't necessarily visible on

0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:42.160
<v Speaker 2>all of it, though. In two thousand and nine, it

0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:46.200
<v Speaker 2>was discovered that Egyptian blue has a near infrared luminescence

0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:48.760
<v Speaker 2>that can help researchers find traces of it that aren't

0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.280
<v Speaker 2>visible to the naked eye anymore. So. About that same time,

0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:56.280
<v Speaker 2>conservation scientists used that discovery to confirm that there are

0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:00.400
<v Speaker 2>traces of Egyptian blue on the Parthenon marbles, and we

0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.240
<v Speaker 2>have artwork where we can see this pigment that is

0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:06.440
<v Speaker 2>at least three thousand years old, and the pigment itself

0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.440
<v Speaker 2>has held up. The binders that have been used with

0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.040
<v Speaker 2>it have not always fared as well, though, For example,

0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:15.000
<v Speaker 2>pieces that used a lot of gum arabic as a

0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:18.040
<v Speaker 2>binder have tended to blacken or turn green over time.

0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:23.720
<v Speaker 2>The Egyptian term for Egyptian blue translates to artificial lapis lazilie,

0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.600
<v Speaker 2>and the next pigment we're going to talk about is ultramarine,

0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:27.880
<v Speaker 2>which was made out.

0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:29.240
<v Speaker 1>Of lapis lazolie.

0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:33.360
<v Speaker 2>Lapis lazilie is a metamorphic rock that's found primarily in

0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.600
<v Speaker 2>one place in the Eastern Hemisphere, and that's the premier

0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:40.640
<v Speaker 2>mountains in Central Asia. People in what's now Afghanistan were

0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:44.360
<v Speaker 2>mining lapis as early as seven thousand BCE, and by

0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:48.160
<v Speaker 2>thirty five hundred BCE was being carried thousands of miles

0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:51.280
<v Speaker 2>along trade routes through Asia and Europe and Africa. And

0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.600
<v Speaker 2>as we said earlier, the first uses of lapis lazolie

0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:58.280
<v Speaker 2>were mostly to make carved objects in inlays. Although lapis

0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:00.760
<v Speaker 2>could be crushed into powder and used as a pigment,

0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.800
<v Speaker 2>that pigment was not very pure because lapis is made

0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:06.919
<v Speaker 2>up of a mixture of different minerals, and these minerals,

0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.159
<v Speaker 2>depending on what their concentrations were, would all affect the

0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:14.160
<v Speaker 2>final color. So if there were impurities present and again

0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:20.080
<v Speaker 2>those concentrations, different preparations could look completely different from one another,

0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.119
<v Speaker 2>and then they would also look completely different. Over time,

0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:26.399
<v Speaker 2>people still tried it, though there is evidence of lapis

0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:29.080
<v Speaker 2>being used as a paint in the Karnak Temple complex

0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:32.640
<v Speaker 2>in Egypt. By about the sixth century, though, people had

0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:36.200
<v Speaker 2>worked out how to purify lapis lasalie into a pure

0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:40.399
<v Speaker 2>blue pigment now known as ultramarine. Unlike with Egyptian blue,

0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:43.280
<v Speaker 2>we do have the recipe for this. One artist and

0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:47.240
<v Speaker 2>writer Tanino Chanini, who lived between about thirteen seventy and

0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:50.640
<v Speaker 2>fourteen forty, wrote the process down in a lot of detail.

0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:53.600
<v Speaker 2>And you may have heard that ultramarine was worth more

0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:58.080
<v Speaker 2>than gold and Chininocinini's method really illustrates why it wasn't

0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:00.800
<v Speaker 2>just because lapis lasilie was only being mind in one

0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:04.359
<v Speaker 2>area of Afghanistan at the time. The process was also

0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:08.119
<v Speaker 2>long and really complicated, and it yield a very small

0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:11.359
<v Speaker 2>amount of usable pigment. So here's how he described it

0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:14.280
<v Speaker 2>in his book of art. Quote, First, take some lap

0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:17.119
<v Speaker 2>as lazily, and if you would know how to distinguish

0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:20.359
<v Speaker 2>the best stones, take those which contain most of the

0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.120
<v Speaker 2>blue color. So it is for it is mixed with

0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:26.919
<v Speaker 2>what is like ashes. That which contains least of this

0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.800
<v Speaker 2>ash pigment is best. But be careful that you do

0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:33.040
<v Speaker 2>not mistake it for azuo deela magna, which is beautiful

0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:37.560
<v Speaker 2>to the eye as enamel. Azurodela magna is as you rite,

0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:41.640
<v Speaker 2>which is copper carbonate carbonate material. It was being used

0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.200
<v Speaker 2>to make blue pigments during the Middle Ages and Renaissance,

0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:45.960
<v Speaker 2>although it was hard to mine and it was also

0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.000
<v Speaker 2>tricky to work with, but it was cheaper than ultramarine,

0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.800
<v Speaker 2>although it was not as stable or vibrant as a pigment.

0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:54.919
<v Speaker 2>So going back to the recipe, once you've got your

0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:57.520
<v Speaker 2>lap as lassily, you pound it in a bronze mortar

0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:01.399
<v Speaker 2>covered so that the dust doesn't just fly out. You

0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:03.480
<v Speaker 2>grind it and you strain it, and you sift it,

0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:06.800
<v Speaker 2>and you pound it. Quote again as much as is required.

0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:10.040
<v Speaker 2>But bear in mind that though the more you grind,

0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:13.440
<v Speaker 2>the more finely powdered the A zero will be, yet

0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:16.000
<v Speaker 2>it will not be so beautiful and rich and deep

0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:19.359
<v Speaker 2>in color. And all of this pounding and grinding and

0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:23.080
<v Speaker 2>straining and sifting was difficult because lapis lasoli is physically

0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:26.440
<v Speaker 2>hard to pulverize. And this was also just the beginning.

0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:29.280
<v Speaker 2>He went on to write, Quote, when the powder is prepared,

0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:32.879
<v Speaker 2>procure from the druggist six ounces of resin of the pine,

0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:36.119
<v Speaker 2>three ounces of mastic, and three ounces of new wax

0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.800
<v Speaker 2>to each pound of lapis lasili. Put all these ingredients

0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:43.000
<v Speaker 2>into a new pipkin and melt them together. Then take

0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:45.840
<v Speaker 2>a piece of white linen and strain these things into

0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:49.080
<v Speaker 2>a glazed basin. Then take a pound of the powder

0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.600
<v Speaker 2>of lapis laslie. Mix it all well together into a paste,

0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:54.719
<v Speaker 2>and that you may be able to handle the paste.

0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.160
<v Speaker 2>Take linseed oil, and keep your hands always well anointed

0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.400
<v Speaker 2>with this oil. This pae must be kept at least

0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:04.480
<v Speaker 2>three days and three nights, kneeding it a little every day.

0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:07.399
<v Speaker 2>And remember that you may keep it for fifteen days

0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:11.280
<v Speaker 2>or a month, or as long as you please. I

0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:15.040
<v Speaker 2>like how it's like three days, but like forever's cool. Yeah,

0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.280
<v Speaker 2>it's totally fine. Also, it's not lap as lasli yet,

0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:22.040
<v Speaker 2>or it's not ultramarine yet. You still need to extract

0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:23.760
<v Speaker 2>the pigment from the pace that you just made and

0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:28.439
<v Speaker 2>left from between three days and forever. You do this

0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:31.600
<v Speaker 2>by putting the pace in a glazed basin, quote with

0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:35.919
<v Speaker 2>a porringer ful of lie moderately warm, and then you

0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.240
<v Speaker 2>work that with two rounded wooden sticks. So he describes

0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:42.960
<v Speaker 2>this quote. With these two sticks, one in each hand,

0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:46.399
<v Speaker 2>turn and squeeze and knead the paste thoroughly, exactly in

0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:49.200
<v Speaker 2>the manner that you would need bread. Now I need

0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:54.240
<v Speaker 2>to take a minute. I've never used sticks to need bread.

0:20:55.720 --> 0:21:01.840
<v Speaker 1>I picture you so much, just poking at It's like.

0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.440
<v Speaker 2>In a bread machine. It's a paddle like that. Uh okay,

0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:08.400
<v Speaker 2>so sticks as you and knee bread. When you see

0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:12.080
<v Speaker 2>that the lye is thoroughly blue, pour it, uh, pour

0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:15.080
<v Speaker 2>it into a glazed basin. Take the same quantity of

0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:17.280
<v Speaker 2>fresh lie, pour it over the paste, and work it

0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.879
<v Speaker 2>with the sticks as before. When this lie is very blue,

0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:23.919
<v Speaker 2>pour it into another glazed basin and continue to do

0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:27.920
<v Speaker 2>so for several days until the paste no longer tinges

0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.800
<v Speaker 2>the lye. Then throw it away, for it is good

0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:35.280
<v Speaker 2>for nothing. Hey, guess what, You still don't have ultramarine yet.

0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:38.960
<v Speaker 2>The substance in each of these basins will be a

0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:41.680
<v Speaker 2>different shade of blue depending on when in the process

0:21:41.720 --> 0:21:44.359
<v Speaker 2>you filled it, and you need to combine them together

0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:47.000
<v Speaker 2>based on how many shades of ultramarine you are trying

0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:49.560
<v Speaker 2>to make. You have to be careful when you're doing this.

0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.360
<v Speaker 2>The basins that were filled first are the best quality,

0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.920
<v Speaker 2>and quote the last two extracts are worse than ashes.

0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.199
<v Speaker 2>May your eyes therefore be experienced so as not to

0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.120
<v Speaker 2>spoil the good as you're by mixing it with the bad,

0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:05.040
<v Speaker 2>and each day remove the lie that the azure may dry.

0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:08.119
<v Speaker 2>So from there, Tanini offers some advice about what to

0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:10.880
<v Speaker 2>do if none of your ultramarine has the beautiful deep

0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:13.960
<v Speaker 2>color that you're expecting, and essentially that's mixing it with

0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:16.280
<v Speaker 2>a little bit of crimson dye and allowing that all

0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:20.000
<v Speaker 2>to dry again. Then once you have your finished ultramarine,

0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:22.879
<v Speaker 2>we get to the part of this that is the

0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:27.240
<v Speaker 2>unexpected sexism moment of the show quote, put it into

0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:29.639
<v Speaker 2>a skinner purse, and rejoice in it, for it is

0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:31.960
<v Speaker 2>good and perfect. And bear in mind that it is

0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:34.119
<v Speaker 2>a rare gift to know how to make it well.

0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:37.080
<v Speaker 2>And you must know that it is rather the art

0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:39.560
<v Speaker 2>of maidens than of men to make it, because they

0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:43.000
<v Speaker 2>remain continually in the house and are more patient and

0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:50.640
<v Speaker 2>their hands more delicate. But beware of old women. I'm

0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:55.560
<v Speaker 2>just out here ruining your Acca marine. Yeah, I don't

0:22:55.560 --> 0:22:57.640
<v Speaker 2>think he'd be cool with me making a Socco marine

0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:03.439
<v Speaker 2>or ultramarine either. Ultramarine is beautiful and expensive and rare,

0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:06.000
<v Speaker 2>so during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it was

0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:10.000
<v Speaker 2>mostly used by the most skilled, respected artists and artisans.

0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:13.000
<v Speaker 2>Some artists would try to make it stretch by saving

0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:16.400
<v Speaker 2>their ultramarine for their last final touches on whatever work

0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:20.040
<v Speaker 2>they were making, and others used ultramarine only on subjects

0:23:20.040 --> 0:23:22.080
<v Speaker 2>that seemed worthy of it. And this is when blue

0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:26.159
<v Speaker 2>started to take on a symbolic meaning, such as the

0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:29.080
<v Speaker 2>color of the Virgin Mary's clothing. And you can also

0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:31.400
<v Speaker 2>see an example of this here in the National Gallery

0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:34.639
<v Speaker 2>of Art in Raphael's the album Madonna, which was created

0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:37.480
<v Speaker 2>in about fifteen ten. That is on view in gallery

0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:39.480
<v Speaker 2>twenty of the main floor of the West Building, that

0:23:39.600 --> 0:23:41.679
<v Speaker 2>is the other building from where we are tonight. That

0:23:41.800 --> 0:23:43.240
<v Speaker 2>is a very good reason for you to come back

0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:45.840
<v Speaker 2>to this amazing place. Yeah, don't try to go over

0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:47.000
<v Speaker 2>there right now. That building is closed.

0:23:47.040 --> 0:23:47.879
<v Speaker 1>Get in all the trouble.

0:23:49.320 --> 0:23:51.600
<v Speaker 2>Some artists, though dated, neither of these things, to try

0:23:51.640 --> 0:23:54.159
<v Speaker 2>to conserve it or make it stretch. An example is

0:23:54.720 --> 0:23:58.320
<v Speaker 2>Johannis Permir who just spent enormous amounts of money on

0:23:58.480 --> 0:24:02.600
<v Speaker 2>ultramarine and used an extent simply everywhere. The vermiers are

0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:05.560
<v Speaker 2>in Gallery fifty A of the West Building also still

0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:06.920
<v Speaker 2>the other building spectacular.

0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:11.280
<v Speaker 1>They are beautu I get the vapors over seat. You

0:24:11.320 --> 0:24:12.480
<v Speaker 1>can see them on the internet.

0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:17.400
<v Speaker 2>Also, thanks to its colossal expense and rarity, people were

0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:21.159
<v Speaker 2>really eager for some kind of substitute for ultramarine. It

0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:24.159
<v Speaker 2>needed to be equally good quality, but also cheaper and

0:24:24.359 --> 0:24:27.920
<v Speaker 2>easier to get. In eighteen twenty four, the French Society

0:24:27.960 --> 0:24:31.439
<v Speaker 2>for the Encouragement of National Industry offered a prize of

0:24:31.520 --> 0:24:34.880
<v Speaker 2>six thousand francs to whoever figured out an industrial process

0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:38.520
<v Speaker 2>to make synthetic ultramarine and it also had to cost

0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:41.920
<v Speaker 2>less than three hundred francs a kilogram, and there were

0:24:41.920 --> 0:24:45.040
<v Speaker 2>two competing claims on this prize, which was ultimately awarded

0:24:45.040 --> 0:24:48.159
<v Speaker 2>to Jean Baptiste Guimet in eighteen twenty eight. And that

0:24:48.280 --> 0:24:52.880
<v Speaker 2>is made from cowlin, sodium carbonate, bitumen and sulfur, prepared

0:24:52.920 --> 0:24:55.760
<v Speaker 2>and heated in a furnace or kiln. So once there

0:24:55.800 --> 0:24:59.480
<v Speaker 2>was this widely available, much less expensive blue pigment, the

0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:02.560
<v Speaker 2>color blue became way more common in artwork and for

0:25:02.680 --> 0:25:05.280
<v Speaker 2>more mundane topics a lot of the time. By the

0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:08.199
<v Speaker 2>start of the Impressionist movement, most painters were working in

0:25:08.280 --> 0:25:12.080
<v Speaker 2>synthetic ultramarine rather than made from lapis lazuli, And then

0:25:12.200 --> 0:25:14.920
<v Speaker 2>we get all those beautiful monaise that are all full

0:25:14.920 --> 0:25:18.680
<v Speaker 2>of blue everywhere. To be clear, ultramarine was not the

0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:20.960
<v Speaker 2>only blue pigment that was in use at this point.

0:25:21.359 --> 0:25:24.399
<v Speaker 2>Cobalt blue was introduced in eighteen oh two and cerulean

0:25:24.400 --> 0:25:27.880
<v Speaker 2>blue in the eighteen sixties. Prussian blue had been developed

0:25:27.920 --> 0:25:30.680
<v Speaker 2>back at the start of the seventeen hundreds, quite by accident.

0:25:31.400 --> 0:25:34.200
<v Speaker 2>There is some fuzziness as to the details about this,

0:25:34.600 --> 0:25:37.439
<v Speaker 2>but the conventional story is that an alchemist named Johann

0:25:37.520 --> 0:25:41.399
<v Speaker 2>Kanrad Dipple was working with potash and animal blood, and

0:25:41.520 --> 0:25:45.440
<v Speaker 2>Johann Jakub Diesbach was a dye maker who used podash

0:25:45.680 --> 0:25:48.640
<v Speaker 2>as part of making a red dye, and Deezbach ran

0:25:48.680 --> 0:25:51.720
<v Speaker 2>out and he either bought or borrowed some from Dipple,

0:25:52.040 --> 0:25:54.000
<v Speaker 2>and it was the podash that had been adulterated with

0:25:54.040 --> 0:25:56.760
<v Speaker 2>animal blood. And because of this, instead of making the

0:25:56.800 --> 0:25:59.880
<v Speaker 2>red dye that he was expecting, Diesbach wound up.

0:26:00.080 --> 0:26:00.840
<v Speaker 1>The vivid blue.

0:26:01.280 --> 0:26:03.760
<v Speaker 2>I like to imagine that he was like, he won't

0:26:03.760 --> 0:26:05.640
<v Speaker 2>notice if I just take some of it.

0:26:06.240 --> 0:26:08.640
<v Speaker 1>We'll give it. Why is this blue now?

0:26:09.560 --> 0:26:12.040
<v Speaker 2>Tipple used his knowledge of chemistry to work out how

0:26:12.119 --> 0:26:15.840
<v Speaker 2>to replicate these box results, and then another man, Johann

0:26:15.920 --> 0:26:19.600
<v Speaker 2>Leonard Frisch, also claims to have invented this in a

0:26:19.680 --> 0:26:23.560
<v Speaker 2>letter to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz in seventeen fifteen. Although these

0:26:23.600 --> 0:26:25.760
<v Speaker 2>men tried to keep their recipe a secret so they

0:26:25.800 --> 0:26:29.159
<v Speaker 2>could cash in on the incredibly lucrative blue pigment trade,

0:26:29.359 --> 0:26:31.960
<v Speaker 2>John Woodward published a method of making it in seventeen

0:26:32.000 --> 0:26:34.320
<v Speaker 2>twenty four, so anybody could make as much as they wanted,

0:26:34.880 --> 0:26:38.399
<v Speaker 2>and the development of Prussian blue also sometimes called Berlin Blue,

0:26:38.440 --> 0:26:41.120
<v Speaker 2>affected the use of blue in artwork much the way

0:26:41.160 --> 0:26:44.199
<v Speaker 2>that synthetic ultramarine did. For example, it led to a

0:26:44.280 --> 0:26:48.800
<v Speaker 2>whole style of woodblock prints in Japan called ai zurie.

0:26:49.240 --> 0:26:52.800
<v Speaker 2>Those were printed mostly or entirely in blue, and these

0:26:52.840 --> 0:26:56.000
<v Speaker 2>prints made use of Prussian blue as well as indigo

0:26:56.359 --> 0:26:59.919
<v Speaker 2>and other blue pigments. And a particularly famous example is

0:27:00.119 --> 0:27:04.480
<v Speaker 2>Katushiko's Hoku sais thirty six views of Mount Fuji that

0:27:04.560 --> 0:27:07.840
<v Speaker 2>includes the Great Wave of Kanagawa, and the first prints

0:27:07.840 --> 0:27:10.439
<v Speaker 2>of this series we're all in blue, and blue is

0:27:10.440 --> 0:27:12.240
<v Speaker 2>really prominent in the rest of them that are not

0:27:12.280 --> 0:27:14.440
<v Speaker 2>those first ones that are one hundred percent blue. Yeah,

0:27:14.440 --> 0:27:17.760
<v Speaker 2>I love that whole series. And hey, we just mentioned indigo,

0:27:17.800 --> 0:27:20.440
<v Speaker 2>which means that's a good segue into talking about the

0:27:20.520 --> 0:27:22.600
<v Speaker 2>mysteries of blue dyes, which are going to do after

0:27:22.680 --> 0:27:34.320
<v Speaker 2>another quick break. In a lot of the world, the

0:27:34.400 --> 0:27:39.040
<v Speaker 2>oldest surviving examples of dyed textiles are dyed red, but

0:27:39.080 --> 0:27:40.960
<v Speaker 2>blue dye has been around for a pretty long time

0:27:41.000 --> 0:27:45.199
<v Speaker 2>as well. One example is to kell It, which is repent,

0:27:45.320 --> 0:27:48.480
<v Speaker 2>which is mentioned repeatedly in Jewish scripture and was in

0:27:48.600 --> 0:27:51.639
<v Speaker 2>use at least thirty five hundred years ago. Knowledge of

0:27:51.640 --> 0:27:54.320
<v Speaker 2>how to make it was lost some time after the

0:27:54.400 --> 0:27:57.760
<v Speaker 2>Romans destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and today its

0:27:57.840 --> 0:28:01.119
<v Speaker 2>sources believed to be a secretion made by marine snails.

0:28:01.640 --> 0:28:05.480
<v Speaker 2>Other blue dyes are even older. In twenty sixteen, researchers

0:28:05.480 --> 0:28:08.280
<v Speaker 2>announced that they had dated a piece of cotton textile

0:28:08.600 --> 0:28:11.560
<v Speaker 2>found in Juaca, Peru, and found that it was sixty

0:28:11.560 --> 0:28:15.080
<v Speaker 2>two hundred years old. It had been dyed with indigo,

0:28:15.160 --> 0:28:17.639
<v Speaker 2>making it the oldest known use of indigo dye and

0:28:17.720 --> 0:28:21.120
<v Speaker 2>one of the oldest surviving cotton textiles. And there were

0:28:21.160 --> 0:28:23.639
<v Speaker 2>other blue dyes in the Americas as well. For example,

0:28:23.640 --> 0:28:26.520
<v Speaker 2>there is evidence that the Navajo Nation had a natively

0:28:26.560 --> 0:28:30.800
<v Speaker 2>produced blue plant dye, which was eventually replaced with indigo

0:28:30.880 --> 0:28:33.720
<v Speaker 2>that was introduced from further south in what is now Mexico.

0:28:34.359 --> 0:28:35.840
<v Speaker 1>So today indigo.

0:28:35.520 --> 0:28:38.520
<v Speaker 2>Is more often associated with what's now India, but the

0:28:38.560 --> 0:28:42.760
<v Speaker 2>plant genus Indigofera includes hundreds of flowering plants that live

0:28:42.840 --> 0:28:46.040
<v Speaker 2>in tropical and subtropical areas all around the world, and

0:28:46.120 --> 0:28:48.360
<v Speaker 2>a lot of them can and have been used to

0:28:48.400 --> 0:28:51.760
<v Speaker 2>make purple and blue dyes. Indigo has been used to

0:28:51.760 --> 0:28:55.400
<v Speaker 2>make paints as well. For example, Maya blue was used

0:28:55.440 --> 0:28:58.400
<v Speaker 2>as a paint in pre colonial meso America, and that

0:28:58.520 --> 0:29:02.200
<v Speaker 2>was made from indigo and a clay called paligor skite

0:29:02.240 --> 0:29:05.160
<v Speaker 2>and at least one other ingredient who's or at least

0:29:05.200 --> 0:29:06.560
<v Speaker 2>one other ingredient whose identity is.

0:29:06.480 --> 0:29:07.400
<v Speaker 1>Still a little bit debated.

0:29:07.920 --> 0:29:11.760
<v Speaker 2>And as another example of usage, Peter Paul Rubens used

0:29:11.800 --> 0:29:15.800
<v Speaker 2>both ultramarine and indigo in the Fall of Phaeton, which

0:29:15.840 --> 0:29:17.600
<v Speaker 2>is here at the National Gallery of Art in the

0:29:17.600 --> 0:29:20.960
<v Speaker 2>West Building's Gallery forty five. Melanie Gifford, who is a

0:29:20.960 --> 0:29:25.240
<v Speaker 2>research conservator here, described his process in painting this to

0:29:25.320 --> 0:29:28.200
<v Speaker 2>us in an email. She said Rubens used indigo paint

0:29:28.440 --> 0:29:30.800
<v Speaker 2>indigo to paint the sky while working on the painting

0:29:30.840 --> 0:29:33.440
<v Speaker 2>in Italy in sixteen oh four, and then when he

0:29:33.560 --> 0:29:36.560
<v Speaker 2>revised the painting in Antwerp a few years later, he

0:29:36.680 --> 0:29:39.440
<v Speaker 2>switched to the brighter ultramarine. So when it comes to

0:29:39.480 --> 0:29:42.920
<v Speaker 2>making dye, the historical details of how the plants were

0:29:42.960 --> 0:29:45.680
<v Speaker 2>processed and how the dye was used could really vary

0:29:45.760 --> 0:29:48.960
<v Speaker 2>based on where the indigo was being grown. Often the

0:29:48.960 --> 0:29:52.760
<v Speaker 2>steps had a cultural or religious significance, and regardless of

0:29:52.800 --> 0:29:57.080
<v Speaker 2>the specifics, it tended to be a pretty involved process.

0:29:57.160 --> 0:30:00.080
<v Speaker 2>That required a whole lot of plant material to make

0:30:00.120 --> 0:30:02.920
<v Speaker 2>a very small amount of dye. And as an example,

0:30:03.120 --> 0:30:06.720
<v Speaker 2>here is how indigo was processed in Suriname, as described

0:30:06.720 --> 0:30:10.200
<v Speaker 2>by John Gabriel Studman quote. When all the verdure is

0:30:10.240 --> 0:30:12.719
<v Speaker 2>cut off, the whole crop is tied in bunches and

0:30:12.760 --> 0:30:15.680
<v Speaker 2>put into a very large tub with water covered over

0:30:15.760 --> 0:30:18.600
<v Speaker 2>with very heavy logs of wood by way of pressers.

0:30:19.120 --> 0:30:22.760
<v Speaker 2>Thus kept, it begins to ferment. In less than eighteen hours.

0:30:22.800 --> 0:30:25.320
<v Speaker 2>The water seems to boil and becomes of a violet

0:30:25.440 --> 0:30:28.760
<v Speaker 2>or garter blue color, extracting all the grain or coloring

0:30:28.800 --> 0:30:32.320
<v Speaker 2>matter from the plant. In this situation, the liquor is

0:30:32.400 --> 0:30:35.400
<v Speaker 2>drawn off into another tub, which is something less. When

0:30:35.440 --> 0:30:38.280
<v Speaker 2>the remaining trash is carefully picked up and thrown away,

0:30:38.800 --> 0:30:41.600
<v Speaker 2>and the very noxious smell of this refuse, it is

0:30:41.640 --> 0:30:45.480
<v Speaker 2>that occasions the peculiar unhealthiness which is always incident to

0:30:45.560 --> 0:30:49.240
<v Speaker 2>this business. Being now in the second tub, the mash

0:30:49.280 --> 0:30:53.240
<v Speaker 2>is agitated by paddles adapted for the purpose, not just

0:30:53.280 --> 0:30:57.960
<v Speaker 2>poky sticks, untill by a skillful maceration, all the grain

0:30:58.040 --> 0:31:01.200
<v Speaker 2>separates from the water, the first sinking like mud to

0:31:01.240 --> 0:31:04.680
<v Speaker 2>the bottom, while the ladder separates while the ladder appears

0:31:04.720 --> 0:31:08.320
<v Speaker 2>clear and transparent on the surface, this water being carefully

0:31:08.320 --> 0:31:11.600
<v Speaker 2>removed till near the colored mass. The remaining liquor is

0:31:11.680 --> 0:31:14.960
<v Speaker 2>drawn off into a third tub to let what indigo

0:31:15.120 --> 0:31:18.800
<v Speaker 2>it may contain also settle in the bottom, after which

0:31:18.840 --> 0:31:21.800
<v Speaker 2>the last drops of water here being also removed, the

0:31:21.880 --> 0:31:25.520
<v Speaker 2>sediment or indigo is put into proper vessels to dry, where,

0:31:25.560 --> 0:31:29.120
<v Speaker 2>being divested of its last remaining moisture and formed into small,

0:31:29.480 --> 0:31:33.120
<v Speaker 2>round and oblong square pieces, it has become a beautiful

0:31:33.440 --> 0:31:36.640
<v Speaker 2>dark blue and fit for exportation. It's a lot of

0:31:36.680 --> 0:31:39.600
<v Speaker 2>work all these I'm like, do we need the blue?

0:31:39.600 --> 0:31:42.800
<v Speaker 2>Though I know I would be, I'd be like any

0:31:42.840 --> 0:31:45.640
<v Speaker 2>other color. I'm out, I can't. Fortunately, it's a day

0:31:45.640 --> 0:31:48.880
<v Speaker 2>we have chemistry, and chemists do these things rather than

0:31:48.920 --> 0:31:50.400
<v Speaker 2>having I mean, you can still mash a lot of

0:31:50.400 --> 0:31:53.840
<v Speaker 2>plants and get indigo dye. People do that, some of

0:31:53.840 --> 0:31:57.760
<v Speaker 2>them for fun. As a cool side note, when you

0:31:57.840 --> 0:32:00.920
<v Speaker 2>dye something with true indigo made from indigo plants, it

0:32:01.000 --> 0:32:03.440
<v Speaker 2>is green when it comes out of the vat, and

0:32:03.480 --> 0:32:05.600
<v Speaker 2>then it turns blue while it's exposed to the air.

0:32:06.400 --> 0:32:08.840
<v Speaker 1>Magic chemistry. It looks really cool.

0:32:09.440 --> 0:32:12.600
<v Speaker 2>Indigo was being cultivated in the Indian subcontinent by two

0:32:12.640 --> 0:32:16.640
<v Speaker 2>thousand BCE, and indigo became an important part of the

0:32:16.640 --> 0:32:20.480
<v Speaker 2>spice trade. During processing, the plant's leaves were pulverized into

0:32:20.560 --> 0:32:23.200
<v Speaker 2>a paste and the extracted dye was shaped into blocks

0:32:23.200 --> 0:32:26.680
<v Speaker 2>and dried. And these resulting blocks were so stone like

0:32:26.960 --> 0:32:29.640
<v Speaker 2>that when they arrived in Europe people actually assumed that

0:32:29.640 --> 0:32:33.240
<v Speaker 2>they were some kind of stone similar to lapis. Indigo

0:32:33.440 --> 0:32:37.440
<v Speaker 2>wasn't that common in Europe until after an Indian navigator

0:32:37.600 --> 0:32:40.040
<v Speaker 2>led Vasco da Gama to a sea route to the

0:32:40.080 --> 0:32:43.640
<v Speaker 2>Indian subcontinent in fourteen ninety eight, and before that point,

0:32:43.840 --> 0:32:46.920
<v Speaker 2>wade was more commonly used as a blue dye in Europe.

0:32:46.960 --> 0:32:51.040
<v Speaker 2>This was also known as pastel. That can make reading

0:32:51.120 --> 0:32:54.480
<v Speaker 2>old die manuals a little confusing for people who aren't

0:32:54.520 --> 0:32:57.120
<v Speaker 2>familiar with that term being used in that way rather

0:32:57.200 --> 0:33:00.240
<v Speaker 2>than for crayons made out of powdery pigment.

0:33:00.200 --> 0:33:03.840
<v Speaker 1>Or white colors. Woad is also a.

0:33:03.720 --> 0:33:06.800
<v Speaker 2>Flowering plant that requires an involved process to be made

0:33:06.840 --> 0:33:07.720
<v Speaker 2>into a dye.

0:33:08.160 --> 0:33:08.800
<v Speaker 1>Ethel M.

0:33:09.000 --> 0:33:11.600
<v Speaker 2>Merritt's, a book on vegetable dyes, which was published in

0:33:11.680 --> 0:33:13.560
<v Speaker 2>nineteen nineteen, described it this way.

0:33:14.120 --> 0:33:14.440
<v Speaker 1>Quote.

0:33:14.440 --> 0:33:17.160
<v Speaker 2>The leaves, when cut are reduced to a paste kept

0:33:17.240 --> 0:33:20.240
<v Speaker 2>in heaps for about fifteen days to ferment and formed

0:33:20.240 --> 0:33:23.160
<v Speaker 2>into balls which are dried in the sun. These balls

0:33:23.160 --> 0:33:26.400
<v Speaker 2>are subjected to a further fermentation of nine weeks before

0:33:26.680 --> 0:33:30.440
<v Speaker 2>being used by the dyer. Seems less complicated, but also

0:33:30.920 --> 0:33:32.920
<v Speaker 2>nine weeks of further fermentation.

0:33:32.560 --> 0:33:35.320
<v Speaker 1>Well, it could be forever, so it could be forever.

0:33:36.520 --> 0:33:39.960
<v Speaker 2>When theo When indigo became more accessible in Europe after

0:33:40.000 --> 0:33:43.360
<v Speaker 2>fourteen ninety eight, it really upended the dye industry. This

0:33:43.600 --> 0:33:46.239
<v Speaker 2>was at a time when various crafts and trades are

0:33:46.280 --> 0:33:48.680
<v Speaker 2>being regulated through the guild system, and a lot of

0:33:48.720 --> 0:33:53.640
<v Speaker 2>europe dyer's guilds had very strong opinions about this sudden

0:33:53.680 --> 0:33:58.120
<v Speaker 2>availability of indigo dye. Although processing the indigo plants into

0:33:58.160 --> 0:34:00.840
<v Speaker 2>a dye was very difficult and time I'm consuming, it

0:34:00.880 --> 0:34:04.000
<v Speaker 2>was getting to Europe ready to use rather than people

0:34:04.040 --> 0:34:06.400
<v Speaker 2>in Europe having to be the ones to make it

0:34:06.480 --> 0:34:09.239
<v Speaker 2>ready to use. The resulting dye was also a lot

0:34:09.280 --> 0:34:11.640
<v Speaker 2>easier to work with than woad and it made a

0:34:11.640 --> 0:34:15.759
<v Speaker 2>better quality blue overall. As indigo dye became more available,

0:34:15.880 --> 0:34:19.879
<v Speaker 2>guilds and governments in Europe had to negotiate a sudden shift.

0:34:19.560 --> 0:34:20.640
<v Speaker 1>In supply and demand.

0:34:21.239 --> 0:34:24.120
<v Speaker 2>Blue had already been increasing in popularity as people had

0:34:24.160 --> 0:34:27.759
<v Speaker 2>gotten better at processing woad into a good quality dye.

0:34:27.800 --> 0:34:30.760
<v Speaker 2>But then with this influx of indigo, more people wanted

0:34:30.760 --> 0:34:34.520
<v Speaker 2>blue cloth for everything from clothing to coats of arms.

0:34:34.840 --> 0:34:37.040
<v Speaker 2>And it got to the point that, in places where

0:34:37.160 --> 0:34:40.480
<v Speaker 2>dyeing and weaving had been completely different trades governed by

0:34:40.560 --> 0:34:44.080
<v Speaker 2>totally different guilds, weavers started to be allowed to dye

0:34:44.080 --> 0:34:48.319
<v Speaker 2>their own cloth, but only if they were dying at blue. Meanwhile,

0:34:48.440 --> 0:34:51.920
<v Speaker 2>indigo was being banned in various parts of Europe as

0:34:52.040 --> 0:34:56.480
<v Speaker 2>dyers tried to protect their trade, and regions whose economies

0:34:56.520 --> 0:34:59.880
<v Speaker 2>depended on growing and processing wod tried to protect their

0:34:59.880 --> 0:35:03.680
<v Speaker 2>life livelihoods. Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph the Second published an

0:35:03.800 --> 0:35:06.840
<v Speaker 2>edict against indigo in fifteen seventy seven, in which he

0:35:07.000 --> 0:35:15.080
<v Speaker 2>called it cheating, corrosive, devouring and diabolical. Seems pretty harsh.

0:35:16.600 --> 0:35:19.400
<v Speaker 2>Indigo was prohibited in parts of France and Germany in

0:35:19.440 --> 0:35:22.759
<v Speaker 2>fifteen ninety eight, and in Saxony in sixteen fifty, and

0:35:22.760 --> 0:35:25.520
<v Speaker 2>then Rome prohibited the use of indigo throughout Italy in

0:35:25.600 --> 0:35:26.440
<v Speaker 2>sixteen fifty two.

0:35:27.400 --> 0:35:29.680
<v Speaker 1>I kind of agree with Rudolph A second, I just

0:35:30.000 --> 0:35:31.719
<v Speaker 1>indigo's not for me. I don't.

0:35:33.640 --> 0:35:35.800
<v Speaker 2>No shade to anybody that loves indigo. I'm just kidding.

0:35:35.800 --> 0:35:38.280
<v Speaker 2>It's fine, it shouldn't be illegal. On the other hand,

0:35:38.680 --> 0:35:41.880
<v Speaker 2>Queen Elizabeth the First banned the cultivation of wode in

0:35:42.000 --> 0:35:45.799
<v Speaker 2>England in fifteen eighty five. Although people disparagingly say that

0:35:45.840 --> 0:35:48.480
<v Speaker 2>this was an issue because she thought it smelled bad,

0:35:48.760 --> 0:35:51.800
<v Speaker 2>what this was really about was being motivated by fears

0:35:51.840 --> 0:35:55.520
<v Speaker 2>that food crops were being displaced by this newly cultivated

0:35:55.600 --> 0:35:59.520
<v Speaker 2>and lucrative wode. So these laws didn't stop this spread

0:35:59.520 --> 0:36:02.400
<v Speaker 2>of indigo into Europe or the rise of blue as

0:36:02.440 --> 0:36:06.080
<v Speaker 2>a popular color in textiles and art, both because of

0:36:06.120 --> 0:36:09.520
<v Speaker 2>the availability of indigo and because of the introductions of

0:36:09.600 --> 0:36:12.760
<v Speaker 2>those blue pigments that we had talked about earlier. Before

0:36:12.920 --> 0:36:16.800
<v Speaker 2>the fourteenth century, about seventy five percent of the dying

0:36:16.960 --> 0:36:20.120
<v Speaker 2>manuals in Europe had been about the color red, and

0:36:20.160 --> 0:36:22.840
<v Speaker 2>then blue became more and more common in these manuals

0:36:22.840 --> 0:36:25.799
<v Speaker 2>from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries with the increased

0:36:26.160 --> 0:36:30.080
<v Speaker 2>availability of indigo and other blue pigments, and eventually blue

0:36:30.239 --> 0:36:35.239
<v Speaker 2>overtook red and apprentice dyers when they did their masterpiece

0:36:35.320 --> 0:36:37.440
<v Speaker 2>to show that they were ready to practice their craft

0:36:37.440 --> 0:36:40.160
<v Speaker 2>on their own had to do their masterpiece in blue

0:36:40.200 --> 0:36:44.759
<v Speaker 2>dye rather than red. The consequences of this skyrocketing popularity

0:36:44.880 --> 0:36:48.640
<v Speaker 2>of indigo blue in Europe were far reaching. Indigo was

0:36:48.680 --> 0:36:51.200
<v Speaker 2>one of the primary exports of what is now India,

0:36:51.280 --> 0:36:55.600
<v Speaker 2>so as Britain colonized the Indian subcontinent, British colonial policies

0:36:55.680 --> 0:36:59.560
<v Speaker 2>became tightly intertwined with the indigo industry, and this affected

0:36:59.560 --> 0:37:03.359
<v Speaker 2>everything from human rights to the movement for India's independence

0:37:03.360 --> 0:37:06.360
<v Speaker 2>from Britain, as farmers who were forced to grow indigo

0:37:06.400 --> 0:37:09.560
<v Speaker 2>demanded to be allowed to grow food crops instead, and

0:37:09.600 --> 0:37:12.719
<v Speaker 2>then on the total other side of the planet, indigo

0:37:12.760 --> 0:37:15.479
<v Speaker 2>became a major crop in parts of the Americas, where

0:37:15.480 --> 0:37:19.120
<v Speaker 2>it was being grown and harvested and processed by enslaved laborers.

0:37:19.680 --> 0:37:22.560
<v Speaker 2>The description that we read earlier on how indigo was

0:37:22.640 --> 0:37:25.560
<v Speaker 2>being processed in Surinam actually came from a book that

0:37:25.719 --> 0:37:29.640
<v Speaker 2>was titled Quote Narrative of five Years Expedition against the

0:37:29.760 --> 0:37:34.359
<v Speaker 2>Revolted Negroes of Surinam, and that recounted Steedman's experiences in

0:37:34.400 --> 0:37:38.200
<v Speaker 2>Surinam from seventeen seventy two to seventeen seventy seven, and

0:37:38.280 --> 0:37:41.719
<v Speaker 2>much of the Caribbean indigo was later replaced by sugarcane,

0:37:41.800 --> 0:37:44.400
<v Speaker 2>and it became a major cash crop in South Carolina,

0:37:44.920 --> 0:37:48.920
<v Speaker 2>where it was introduced by Eliza Lucas Pinkney. Pinkney relied

0:37:48.960 --> 0:37:52.920
<v Speaker 2>on the knowledge and skill of enslaved labors to refine

0:37:53.120 --> 0:37:56.319
<v Speaker 2>how the indigo there was being cultivated and processed, and

0:37:56.400 --> 0:37:59.400
<v Speaker 2>synthetic indigo was developed in the late nineteenth century, but

0:37:59.440 --> 0:38:01.879
<v Speaker 2>it wasn't until the early twentieth century that it really

0:38:01.920 --> 0:38:05.480
<v Speaker 2>just became super practical to make. Today's synthetic indigo is

0:38:05.560 --> 0:38:09.359
<v Speaker 2>almost entirely has almost entirely replaced indigo that is made

0:38:09.360 --> 0:38:12.239
<v Speaker 2>from plant sources. And there are just so many other

0:38:12.440 --> 0:38:15.719
<v Speaker 2>notable uses of blue that we could talk about in

0:38:15.760 --> 0:38:18.920
<v Speaker 2>this show. Today we haven't at all touched on blue

0:38:18.920 --> 0:38:22.279
<v Speaker 2>glass or blue ceramics. There's the cobalt that was used

0:38:22.320 --> 0:38:25.719
<v Speaker 2>to make that was used to make blue glass and glazes,

0:38:26.239 --> 0:38:29.040
<v Speaker 2>or the blue and white porcelain that was so popular

0:38:29.080 --> 0:38:31.960
<v Speaker 2>in China during the Yuan and Being dynasties, or the

0:38:32.120 --> 0:38:35.359
<v Speaker 2>many attempts to try to replicate that look that were

0:38:35.400 --> 0:38:39.200
<v Speaker 2>made in Europe and North America. There is blue jasperware

0:38:39.400 --> 0:38:42.200
<v Speaker 2>that was developed by Josiah Wedgwood. If we had taken

0:38:42.239 --> 0:38:46.280
<v Speaker 2>a different focus, we could have had a totally different

0:38:46.400 --> 0:38:49.400
<v Speaker 2>look at the color blue today rather than having the

0:38:49.440 --> 0:38:54.319
<v Speaker 2>focus beyond paints and dies and that's the.

0:38:54.280 --> 0:38:55.680
<v Speaker 1>Mysteries of the color blue.

0:38:55.960 --> 0:38:59.360
<v Speaker 2>So thank you to the National Gallery of Art Washington

0:38:59.440 --> 0:39:02.200
<v Speaker 2>for invite us to be here tonight. Yeah, it's been

0:39:02.239 --> 0:39:03.680
<v Speaker 2>such a delight and we get to do it all

0:39:03.719 --> 0:39:06.279
<v Speaker 2>again in a minute. Yeah, so we especially one of

0:39:06.280 --> 0:39:10.719
<v Speaker 2>the thanks Sherry Williams, who is the manager of community programming,

0:39:10.840 --> 0:39:14.400
<v Speaker 2>and Christina Brown who's a publicist, and then Melanie Gifford

0:39:14.440 --> 0:39:16.960
<v Speaker 2>and Chelsea Ususa who were the people that we talked

0:39:17.000 --> 0:39:19.719
<v Speaker 2>to in advance of tonight. And then we also want

0:39:19.760 --> 0:39:22.680
<v Speaker 2>to thank the folks that we have been working with tonight.

0:39:22.840 --> 0:39:25.560
<v Speaker 2>So Kathleen walking around with us a lot, Yeah, taking

0:39:25.560 --> 0:39:27.759
<v Speaker 2>care of us. Robert who's here in the front, took

0:39:27.800 --> 0:39:29.560
<v Speaker 2>great care of us leading up to this, and then

0:39:29.600 --> 0:39:32.160
<v Speaker 2>I think Olivia's back in the back doing sound making

0:39:32.200 --> 0:39:37.720
<v Speaker 2>me not sound like a cackling hen ah. So thanks

0:39:37.719 --> 0:39:48.520
<v Speaker 2>so much everyone for coming. Yeah, thanks so much for

0:39:48.600 --> 0:39:51.399
<v Speaker 2>joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send

0:39:51.480 --> 0:39:55.280
<v Speaker 2>us a note our email addresses History Podcast at iHeartRadio

0:39:55.440 --> 0:39:58.360
<v Speaker 2>dot com, and you can subscribe to the show on

0:39:58.400 --> 0:40:01.960
<v Speaker 2>the iHeartRadio app, podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

0:40:02.000 --> 0:40:02.840
<v Speaker 2>favorite shows.

0:40:09.080 --> 0:40:09.120
<v Speaker 1>M