Colors are like people... You may ambiguously feel intrigued to some of them. There may be ups and downs in this relationship. But one of them is so special for me that I fell in love at first sight and still in love with it. I got to meet it on an Instagram photo of a friend taken in Morocco. Morocco is a land of wonders where you may feel dizzy with the diversity and bounciness of colors. It is like yellow is more yellowish, red is inutterable or green is legendary…However, there is one shade of blue that it is extraterrestrial. It is the exterior paint of the Yves Saint Laurent Museum.
Does not it give you the impression of velvet cover? Furthermore, Its cadence with bright yellow and desert cactuses is majestic.
So today, I learned how this color is called: It is “Klein Blue” and its story is really interesting.
Yves Klein, a new realist French artist famous with his monogram paintings, likes conducting experiments with colors in his art studio. And just like the Pygmalion, the Greek sculpture who falls in love with his own artwork beautiful Galatea, Klein falls in love with the color he invented and he not only names it after his own name but also takes out its patent as “International Klein Blue”, in 1960. He calls the aftermath of his invention as “Blue Revolution”, which is well deserved taken Klein’s contributions to the art. During the Blue Revolution period, he develops theories on monogramy, finds out a technique that he uses women models as “brush” and opens exhibitions in which he uses objects that are painted only by Klein blue.
Klein’s obsession with monogram painting, shallowness and emptiness can be explained with his fondness in freedom. However many art critics have a deeper understanding of it. They say it is motivated by his search for an escape from the crowd and the chaos of his age which coincides with the 2nd world war and his courage for facing the fear of death.
In one of his interviews, he openly revealed this fear, “ We have to understand that we are living at Atom age at which anything can fade away anytime and there may remain only a big abstraction afterward”.
Klein passed away at the age of 34 as a result of a heart attack.
Although it has a sad ending, learning this special story of the color made my relationship with it more special, too. It could also be a sign of opening an exhibition based on monogram paintings in memory of Yves Klein.
Is not it life itself to notice and follow the signs?
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