International Klein Blue and Infinity
My latest obsession.
“Blue has no dimensions; it is beyond dimensions, whereas the other colors are not.”
- Yves Klein
I have been asked to paint a piece in a specific shade of blue, International Klein Blue. I have become obsessed with it. And I am obsessed with the obsession with it; with one man’s obsession with it - Yves Klein.
Klein (1928-62) believed this colour conveyed the essence of the sea, the sky and the infinite universe. He believed it represented both divine unity and absolute nothingness.
Its name in Latin means “beyond the sea”. Ultra (beyond) + Marinus (of the sea) = Ultramarine. It is the closest shade to true blue. But the pigment is unstable and becomes dull when mixed with a binder to create paint. Klein overcame this by developing a new paint formula that preserved the purity of the pigment, a paint of intense, luminous blue. He pompously named and patented it as International Klein Blue (IKB).
He covered everything with it. He covered whole canvases with it in a series of monochrome paintings. He thought lines in pictures were restrictive and that only through pure monochrome colour can the viewer offer a path to freedom from imposed ideas being “immersed in the immeasurable existence of colour.” He covered naked women with it and had them drag each other and themselves across canvases as “living paintbrushes”.
“To sense the soul, without explanation, without words, and to depict this situation - this, I believe, is what led me to monochrome painting.”
- Yves Klein
The blue is now everywhere. It is in fashion and interiors and on the cover of every book published by Fitzcarraldo. There are songs about it.
I painted the colour onto a large board. I have it in front of me now. It is dead flat and powdery and opaque but also somehow alive and luminous.
The fact that I can interact with it is a part of my obsession. I can’t do this with the subjects in the paintings of Klimt or Cezanne or Rembrandt or whoever. Their subjects are physical, non-abstract things: people, objects, and landscapes that are either long dead or lost or changed. I can never have a connection to those subjects like I can with Klein blue, and neither can anyone else.
Some people say they find the colour calming. I don’t understand this. I find it overwhelming and almost too much to look at. It reminds me of how I feel when I look up to the sky and try to imagine what lies beyond everything I can see and imagine and beyond things I can’t see and can’t imagine - infinite space.
I loved this reflection on your personal response to IKB. It brings to mind Derek Jarman's film Blue, made towards the end of his life when he was partially blind and could only see blue shades. And also Rebecca Solnit's reflections on blue in "A Field Guide to Getting Lost" where she describes blue as the light that got lost on its way from the sun, the colour of the far distance that can never be attained.
I can feel your raw experience and enjoyment in this, and that is lovely!