BLUE

Blue calls to mind feelings of calmness or serenity. It is often described as peaceful, tranquil, secure, and orderly. Blue can also create feelings of sadness or aloofness.

As red has been known to raise blood-pressure, blue lowers it. Blue is considered to be a soothing, calming hue. See Caspar David Friedrich's use of blue in his romantic landscapes like Monk by the Sea (1808, oil on canvas, Staatliche Museum, Berlin) and (1818, oil on canvas, Winterthur, Switzerland); or Whistler's calming Nocturne: Blue and Gold (1872, oil on canvas, Tate Collection).

Caspar David Friedrich, Monk by the Sea

Predominantly blue paintings are usually calm and refreshing. Artworks depicting rivers, waterfalls and the ocean often emphasize blue. Landscapes featuring large blue skies are also good options for introducing blue into your environment. Most design motifs associated with blue are smooth, flowing patterns. Blue tends to be connected to asymmetrical, free form and curved images such as waves or meandering streams. Art featuring blue has almost universal appeal and is a good choice for gifts as well as personal use.

Blue conveys importance and confidence without being somber or sinister, hence the blue power suit of the corporate world and the blue uniforms of police officers. Long considered a corporate color, blue, especially darker blue, is associated with intelligence, stability, unity, and conservatism.

Just as seeing red alludes to the strong emotions invoked by the color red, feeling blue or getting the blues represents the extremes of the calm feelings associated with blue, i.e. sadness or depression, lack of strong (violent) emotion. Dark blue is sometimes seen as staid or stodgy — old-fashioned.

Blue in the Church

In the Catholic Church, blue symbolism is most closely related to the Virgin Mary, the Queen of Heaven. Blue signifies the celestial love of truth. That "blue" has this signification, is because it belongs to the color of the sky, and because by this color is signified truth from a celestial origin, which is truth from the good of love to the Lord. This good reigns in the inmost heaven, and in the middle or second heaven it is presented to view as crimson and blue; the good itself as crimson, and the derivative truth as blue. For in the other life, and in heaven itself, there appear most beautiful colors, all deriving their origin from good and truth. For the sphere of the affections of good and truth is sensibly presented before the eyes of angels and spirits by means of colors, and specific things by variously colored objects. They are presented to the nostrils also by means of odors. For everything celestial, which is of good, and everything spiritual, which is of truth, is represented in the lower heavens by such things as appear in nature, thus to the very senses of the spirits and angels there. The reason why the spheres of the affection of good and truth are visibly presented by means of colors, is that the colors are modifications of heavenly light, thus of intelligence and wisdom (AC 4530, 4677, 4742, 4922). The color blue is used quite extensively in the Old Testament to describe the various hangings in the holy places. It is also used as a symbol of wealth and the corruptions thereof, but it should be noted that purple is used far more frequently for such distinctions. In general blue should be viewed as a heavenly color.

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