The Blue Quotes

“Ambrose Stanton has reached the far shore of Character, and the land is called Pomposity.”
― Nancy Bilyeau, The Blue

“It wasn’t until the twelfth century that blue found a place on artists’ palettes, when they began to create it through grinding up certain stones. Every Madonna in a medieval painting wore blue robes, every stained glass window contained blue. It’s as if all men decided, at once, that blue was the color of…” I mull the right word… “the divine.”
― Nancy Bilyeau, The Blue

“I’ve also heard it said that blue signifies divine contemplation.”
― Nancy Bilyeau, The Blue

“We see blue everywhere in the natural world, in the sky and the sea and lakes, even the little bubbling streams, but what do we really see? It’s ephemeral. A reflection of something else. The seeming abundance is a trick. It doesn’t exist in a tangible form that we can adapt, make into pigment for you and all your fellow artists to use over the centuries.”
― Nancy Bilyeau, The Blue

“The ancient followers of Pythagoras believed numbers were the basis of the universe. To them, seven is the deepest mystery, the number of supreme manifestation, and the vehicle of life containing body and spirit.”
― Nancy Bilyeau, The Blue

“What a curious experience, to learn the truth of one’s own character.”
― Nancy Bilyeau, The Blue

“Keppel discovered, quite by accident, that if he mixed potassium of a certain sort with sulfate it produced a beautiful dark blue that would hold on all sorts of surfaces. He sold the pigment to others, but kept his formula secret for years. Guarded it. Made his fortune that way. I think he was perhaps something of a scoundrel. Finally, another scientist was able to decipher his formula, not just for himself but for all, and there is the story of Prussian blue. The first color brought to us through science.”
― Nancy Bilyeau, The Blue