THE BLUE OF HEAVEN AND PARADISE – EXPRESSIONS OF THE SACRED
Smitten By Faith Issue Number : # 000084 16th March 2024
“ The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”
( Revelation 1:7 )
Above : Some pictures of the blue skies stretching far over the horizon as we drove from the airport at Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, up and down the mountains to the lovely little town of Keningau where we had our Silent Retreat deep in the interior of Sabah. ( Pictures courtesy of Susan Alexander and Joan Foo Mahony )
Above : Silhouetted against the sky and the horizon, we saw everywhere - gigantic roadside crucifixes of Jesus throughout our drive. Stunning expressions of faith ! ( Pictures courtesy of Catherin Chua )
A week ago, I attended a four-day Catholic Silent Retreat in the small town of Keningau by the foothills of the Crocker Range of mountains, deep in the interior of Sabah. As we drove along, every few miles, we passed by many giant crucifixes of the ‘roadside Jesus Christ’ in this predominantly Christian part of Sabah - silhouetted against beautiful blue skies over mountains which seemed to stretch for miles to the furthest point of the horizon beyond the canopy of verdant green trees of the jungle. The glorious skies - so blue - made me think of the colour ‘blue’. I thought to myself – it’s time to reflect on why this colour blue is such a perfect and fitting expression of the sacred and the divine.
“ Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as if it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very Heaven for clearness.”
(Exodus 24:9-10 )
The passage above is taken from the Old Testament’s Book of Exodus. When Moses, his sons, and seventy elders of Israel were summoned by God to go up to Mount Sinai and God revealed himself to them, they said that the pavement under God’s feet were of “sapphire stone” – so blue “like the very heaven for clearness.”
In fact, the colour blue “like the very heaven for clearness” has always been a fitting colour expression of the sacred in the context of how artists through the centuries have purposefully used this celestial colour in their paintings and frescoes to express their devotion and veneration, not just of God, but also of the Virgin Mary. In the hands of these great masters of the brush, the colour blue is not a mere colour; not just a plain pigment. Instead, the colour blue takes on an almost other-worldly hue !
LAPIS LAZULI – THE FIRST TRUE BLUE
Left: The chart shows how the different types of powdered blue pigment ground from the lapis lazuli gemstone become various amazing hues of blue - cobalt, azurite, malachite, vivianite and so on.
Centre : Fragments of the various extracted and polished lapis lazuli stones pieced together.
Right : The amazing raw gemstone rock, ‘lapis lazuli’ with streaks of gold flecks.
So, where does the ethereal blue of the Heavens come from ? How did we obtain this sacred blue colour ?
To start with, you already probably know that this rare blue pigment can only be extracted from a rare gemstone called ‘Lapis Lazuli’. So, this colour blue is exceptional indeed ! Blue is not an earth colour. You cannot find this blue pigment from the earth itself and the colour palette of the expanded earth colours of brown, green, grey and beige, red, orange and yellow does not include the colour blue. The blue colour was elusive. So, for millions of years, only earth colours were used in ancient cave paintings and other early artworks. There was no blue in ancient pre-historic cave paintings.
Between the 3rd and 5th centuries BCE, the ancient Egyptians invented a synthetic blue pigment known as ‘Egyptian blue’ which they used in their ornaments and jewelery. The famous eyebrows and dramatic eye shadows of the beautiful Queen Cleopatra and the Pharoahs of Egypt are adorned with this Egyptian blue. The Egyptian blue pigment also caused lead poisoning but so beautiful and unusual was this blue that the use of Egyptian blue continued during the Roman Empire and up to the middles ages.
But then, this all changed in the 6th century BCE when the precious gemstone, ‘lapis lazuli’ was found deep in the limestone mountains of Afghanistan. ‘Lapis’ means stone in Latin and ‘Lazuli’ is its Farsi name - which also means ‘wisdom keeper’. This rich intense blue opaque metamorphic lapis lazuli raw rock is also filled with tiny gold flecks of mineral mica so that when you hold the raw lapis stone in your hands, you feel as if you are looking at a night sky - full of stars ! Glorious !
When this amazing blue gem stone was discovered, it wasn't long before artisans – especially the Italians in Venice learnt how to grind and separate the blue of the lapis lazuli into the finest powder and mix it with an egg-based tempera that formed the basis of medieval paints.
FROM GEMSTONE TO ULTRA-MARINE BLUE – A BLUE BEYOND THE SEA
Above : Ultramarine Blue - a blue beyond the sea
The Italians even gave the blue colour a new name calling it ‘ultramarinus’ or ‘over the sea’ as a reference to the long journey from the mountains of Afghanistan through to the seas of the Mediterranean to reach the merchants of Venice. About this colour blue, the ultra-marine colour, the 15th century Italian painter Cennino Cennini says in his ‘Book of the Arts’, that it is “ ...a noble colour - beautiful, the most perfect of all colours.”
Elusive no more, the magnificent ultra-marine pigment that was extracted from the lapis lazuli soon became the most stunning colour used in jewellery, fine carvings and especially in artworks. But, this blue colour was very expensive because it could only be obtained from lapis lazuli which then could only be found in Afghanistan. It was indeed more precious than gold; so exclusive that only the rich, royalty and the church could afford to use it.
This colour blue was not just any colour – it was God’s own colour and it was a divine colour that would shape paintings for hundreds of centuries from the 4th century CE onwards. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, artists ( who were fortunate to have generous patrons – this pigment was really so expensive ) - began to use abundantly, in their paintings and frescoes - this ethereal, sacred blue to show their deep connection to God. For them, the ultramarine blue – vivid blue, divine blue, celestial blue – this was the colour of Heaven which captured their imagination enabling them to fly and soar beyond the furthest points of their creativity and dreams to paint the most precious subjects – God, Heaven and the Virgin Mary.
MARIAN BLUE – FOR THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN
Left : ‘ Madonna of the Book’ by Sandro Botticelli ( 1445-1510 ); tempera on panel. Poldi Pezzoli Musuem, Milan. Here is a glorious painting of the Virgin Mary draped in vibrant Marian Blue. The thoughtful Mother Mary holding the baby Jesus is wearing a blue robe – signifying hope, purity and as the Queen of Heaven.
Right : ‘The Virgin in Prayer’ by Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato (1609-1685); Oil on canvas. The National Gallery, London. See the cloak of the Virgin Mary. The blue is rich, stunning and dazzling which is even more pronounced against the other colours of her dress —rose pink and creamy white.
By the 5th century CE and particularly during the Renaissance period, the Virgin Mary was a very important subject for artists and they painted her in the colour blue for purity, humility, and her divine position as the Queen of Heaven. Because this colour blue was so costly and difficult to obtain, they certainly made sure that it was not used on just any subject but ‘reserved’ for the Mother of God. This is the colour which we now also call ‘Marian Blue’ ( Mary’s Blue). As you can see in the two paintings above, Mary’s blue is truly magnificent – as befits the brilliant blue of Byzantine Royal Empresses since 500 CE.
“For he has looked upon his handmaid's lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed.”
( Luke 1:48 )
The above lines are taken from the Gospel of Luke 1:48 where the Virgin Mary is humbled that God has chosen her to be the Mother of the Son of God. Her words are now known as the ‘Magnificat’, an extended song of rejoicing and praise as she, the lowly one, praises God. But indeed, she is far from lowly. In the eyes of God and all generations of mankind, this Virgin most holy is the purest, the most blessed and most deserving of all God’s creatures – the Empress of the Heaven.
GIOTTO’S BLUE HEAVEN
GIOTTO DI-BONDONE ( 1267-1337) painted all the wall and ceiling frescoes at the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy. Built on the site of an ancient Roman arena or amphitheatre, this Chapel is also known as the Arena Chapel.
Right : Here is the full view of the jewel-box exquisite interiors of the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy which was completed by Giotto in 1305. The heavenly blue ceiling envelopes his wall frescoes - a cocoon of its sacred blue colour.
Centre : Detail of the amazing ceiling - Giotto’s view of Heaven with hundreds of stars. Jesus Christ is in the centre.
Left : Look at Giotto’s awesome deep blue ceiling of Heaven - vivid, celestial and ethereal.
Giotto di-Bondone, the great Renaissance master artist lived at the beginning of the Renaissance and his view of Heaven was most certainly a celestial blue. Giotto’s famous frescoes which he completed in 1305, at the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy were ground-breaking and the traditional medieval art world was filled with awe by Giotto’s uninhibited extravagant use of this rare colour, BLUE. Giotto was commissioned to paint this family chapel ( the Scrovegni Chapel ) by Enrico Scrovegni from the fabulously wealthy Italian banking family and Giotto must have been giddy with happiness with the no-expense budget from his bountiful patron. Look at Giotto’s amazing ceiling frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel above - you can see Giotto’s all blue Heaven. In the vast deep space of the ceiling we see a heavenly sky of sacred blue filled with hundreds of golden stars. For Giotto, Heaven was certainly Blue; his ceiling was indeed how Heaven would look !
MICHELANGELO’S BLUE PARADISE
‘The Last Judgment’ by Michelangelo (1475-1564) at the Altar Wall of the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican City, took him 5 years from 1536-1541 to complete. Public domain (Wikimedia Commons)
Two hundred years later at almost the end of the golden Renaissance period, we move forward in time and place. We move from Giotto’s ethereal blue ceiling at the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy to Rome to the private chapel of the Popes at the Vatican City. Michelangelo di Ludovico Buonarroti Simoni already known as the great Michelangelo - sculptor and artist - had just finished the herculean task of painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Now, twenty five years from the time he started, there came another Pope who asked him to do more. Pope Clement VII asked Michelangelo to paint ‘The Last Judgement’ at the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. When Michelangelo looked at the wall where he was to paint this monumental work of art, he knew that he was going to use the entire wall and that he needed ( and insisted on ) considerable quantities of the colour Blue ! And, he did just that. There were to be no borders, frames or edges. God’s Paradise was infinite; so Michelangelo was determined to cover the massive wall from end to end; corner to corner - with his own ‘Blue Paradise’.
The colour Blue is everywhere in Michelangelo’s version of ‘The Last Judgement’. Just as in the case of Giotto who lived two centuries before him, for Michelangelo, the colour blue was crucial to artistically and perfectly express his religious devotion to God as he conveyed his incredible images of mortality and immortality, resurrection, heaven, eternal damnation in ‘The Last Judgement’ and the sorting of souls. In Michelangelo’s magnificent fresco he paints God’s final judgement of humanity with Jesus as the focal point in the centre surrounded by his mother, the Virgin Mary and the angels and saints. Around them the artist paints more than three hundred figures in this very busy and powerful composition. There are hundreds of figures - muscular and ( almost all ) in the nude in ‘The Last Judgement’ and all are painted in an infinite number of poses; sheer physicality - in all kinds of emotions and in various group and sub-group clusters - in tiers and quadrants - all over the gigantic painting. We see figures going to their reward up in Paradise and the damned being driven down to the fires of hell. Stupendous and epic !
You cannot look at this magnificent work of art without gasping. You feel almost dizzy viewing so many hundreds of figures; so much movement – everything everywhere – all at once ! But then, wait a moment – we are re-assured and we know that all is well - because our eyes fall on the background – to the landscape of calm blue skies - in the most delicate hue of divine blue – the blue of Paradise.
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