Blue painting

Anonymous: Chinese porcelain vase with scholars attending a meeting , circa 1449–1464

The blue painting (also blue Camaïeu painting, Blaugrisaille, blautonige monochrome painting "en camaïeu bleu" or painting in shades of blue) refers to the painting in blue on porcelain and ceramics. She also means painting with blue paint on canvas, silk, paper, wallpaper or walls. It is then part of an interior design or the starting point for textile prints.

Chinese blue and white porcelain

Anonymous: Delft faience vase with lid, around 1750–1779

During the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), the first blue-and-white porcelains with cobalt painting under the glaze were produced in China in large quantities. In the following Ming dynasty (1368–1644), colored ceramics were created alongside blue-painted ceramics. Funded by the emperors of the Qing dynasty (Manchu emperors, 1644–1911), porcelain art reached the highest technical and artistic level. The white surface with the blue pattern, the gloss of the glaze and the transparent shards look elegant, exquisite, harmonious and pure. Blue and white create a simple picture that may appear monotonous. But this is a central feature of blue-and-white porcelain: it is free from excessive ornamentation or exaggeration. The blue-and-white porcelain occupies a prominent place in Chinese porcelain manufacturing as it fits the cultural and aesthetic spirit that the Chinese have long sought - simplicity, unadornedness and serenity.

Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch traders have been importing the coveted goods to Europe in large quantities since the 17th century.

Delftware ceramics (faience)

Jean-Baptiste Oudry: The eagle and the magpie , 1729–1734. Washed drawing with white heightening on blue paper

The art of porcelain production has long remained a secret of the Chinese. Until the invention of European hard porcelain, attempts were made to imitate Chinese porcelain, first in the Islamic culture and later in Europe. These are ceramics, so-called faiences , in which the natural-colored clay is coated with white tin glaze. The painting is mostly blue, but it can also be colored. Dutch potters in Delft have been making imitations of Chinese porcelain since the 17th century, which has made them world famous. The dishes, vases and tiles are painted with Chinese motifs (flowers, chinoiseries, dragons, birds), but also with local ones ( onion patterns , portraits, Dutch genre scenes and landscapes). The heyday was between 1650 and 1740. It was not until 1708 that the German chemist Johann Friedrich Böttger succeeded in producing the white hard porcelain for the first time. Since then, porcelain has developed in Europe from a luxury item to a product that is affordable for all sections of the population.

Rococo blue painting

François Boucher: The gallant Chinese , 1742, oil on canvas. Boucher imitates the Chinese blue and white porcelain painting

The blue paintings are not painted on porcelain, but directly on the wall or wallpaper, or removable on canvas or silk. Especially in the Rococo era between 1730 and 1765, they were widely used throughout Europe. They can be found in the reveals of windows and doors, over chimneys, mirrors and doors or as a paneled wall field (wall panels) between the room elements. They are often framed by richly ornamented, gilded frames. Whole rooms are kept in the fresh, light blue and white and replace the dark gallery tone. The Swiss academy professor Johann Georg Sulzer even finds that the highest harmony of colors can only be achieved in the paintings if they are painted in one color, gray in gray, red in red or blue in blue. Initially, all three colors are used as monochromes: red (sepia, flesh color), gray (linen gray) and blue (celadon blue). But the blue is clearly prevailing. Because of its widespread use, the blue painter even developed its own profession.

distribution

The beginnings of European blue painting can be found in England, France and Holland. In France, painting is given special attention in the circle of students and employees around the French painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry and in the artist circle around the royal mistress Madame de Pompadour . There is a blue Camaïeu painting by François Boucher, which originally hung over a door in the “Chambre bleu” of Choisy Castle. In the picture Boucher imitates the aesthetic effect of Chinese porcelain and shows the appreciation or seduction of a woman by a Chinese.

Blue painting is particularly popular in Bavaria. One example is the interior of the Pagodenburg (1716–1719) and the Amalienburg pleasure and hunting palace (1734–1739), both in the Nymphenburg Palace Park (Munich). The color blue becomes the color of the Bavarian electors, the Wittelsbach house color. The color is a synonym for cosmopolitanism, time competence and prosperity. For several decades, the blue marks that the Bavarian aristocracy differs from the rest of the feudal world.

Austria is also joining the blue trend. For example, in Schönbrunn Palace near Vienna there is a blue Chinese salon and a dog room that is decorated with blue paintings.

Blue painting has also found its way into everyday porcelain, for example with the everlasting or onion pattern . Apart from the fact that nowadays only very few manufacturers actually have their porcelain painted by hand, today's companies usually have their porcelain printed in shades of blue for reasons of cost.

Last but not least, most of Yves Klein's works are blue paintings.

Schlosspark Nymphenburg, Munich: blue painting on the ceiling and in the door jamb and blue and white Delft tiles on the walls. Ground floor of the Pagodenburg, 1716–1719 (l.)

Nymphenburg Palace Park, Munich: Blue painting in the dog room. Jagdschlösschen Amalienburg, 1734–1739 (center)

Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna: The furnishings imitate the Chinese blue and white porcelain: Porcelain room (Maria Theresa's study), around 1763 (r.)

literature

• Franz Reitinger: The blue epoch. Reductive colourfulness in the Rococo . Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86732-238-6 .

Web links

Commons : Blue painting  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Porcelain - the calling card of Chinese culture. In: Window on China. Retrieved May 1, 2020 . 
2. ↑ dtv lexicon. A conversation lexicon in 20 volumes . tape 3 , keyword: Chinese art. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1966, ISBN 3-423-03053-4 , p. 126 .
3. ^ Lexikon-Institut Bertelsmann (ed.): Bertelsmann Lexikon in 15 volumes . tape 3 , keyword: Delft faience. Bertelsmann Lexikothek Verlag, Gütersloh 1992, ISBN 3-570-03883-1 , p. 322 .
4. ^ Franz Reitinger: The blue epoch. Reductive colourfulness in the Rococo . Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86732-238-6 , pp. 9 .
5. ↑ Johann Georg Sulzer: General Theory of Fine Arts: in individual articles that follow one another according to the alphabetical order of the artificial words . Weidmann and Reich, Leipzig 1771.
6. ^ Franz Reitinger: The blue epoch. Reductive colourfulness in the Rococo . Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86732-238-6 , pp. 7 .
7. ^ Franz Reitinger: The blue epoch. Reductive colourfulness in the Rococo . Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86732-238-6 , pp. 9 .
8. ^ Franz Reitinger: The blue epoch. Reductive colourfulness in the Rococo . Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86732-238-6 , pp. 128 .
9. ^ Franz Reitinger: The blue epoch. Reductive colourfulness in the Rococo . Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86732-238-6 , pp. 26 .