From the late 1940s into the 1950s, French artist Yves Klein began focusing on monochromatic canvases in a limited range of colors—primarily pink, gold, and blue. Searching for a vehicle to express the spiritual aspect of the human condition, in 1955 and 1956, he exhibited several series of these paintings at galleries in Paris. Klein experienced dismay at the public reception of his works. They had seen them as decorative and had entirely missed his intended meaning. He decided to try again. This time, Klein concentrated on one hue: blue.
Yves Klein’s Blue
There is a well-known anecdote relating to Yves Klein’s first commitment to the color blue, which goes some way toward explaining the artist’s later obsession with creating the perfect ultramarine. Klein and two friends, then 19 years old, lay on a beach and decided that they would, hypothetically, share the universe. Arman claimed the earth, Pascal claimed language and words, and Yves decided on what he called The Void. His vision was of the endless blue of the skies, a void-free of matter. This formative experience sparked a desire in Klein that spurred him on throughout his art career to attempt to convey the immateriality of the universe and, ultimately, of life. To him, blue was the gateway to that endeavor. As a result of his search for the perfect blue, solid, of infinite depth and, in terms of paint, fade-resistant, he created International Klein Blue.
Monotone and Monochrome – Sound and Vision
In tandem with his adoption of blue as the color of the immaterial, Klein was inspired to create his Monotone Silence Symphony. It can hardly be called a piece of music, but it was intended for performance by 20 singers, 10 violins, 10 cellos, 3 oboes, 3 trumpets, 3 flutes, and 3 double basses. The Symphony consisted of twenty minutes of a single note, D major, performed by the orchestra and choir, followed by twenty minutes of silence. Conceived as a counterpart to Klein’s monochromatic artworks, the Symphony’s monotone note created a surreal experience for the audience, where the abrupt ending of the sound gave a tangibility to the silence that ensued.
Although Klein conceived the idea of the piece around 1947, it was not performed until 1960 in Paris. Accompanying the performance were three naked models, their bodies covered with International Klein Blue paint, who created imprints of their bodies on canvases placed on the stage. This work, in conjunction with his monochrome blue canvases, aligned Klein with performance artists such as John Cage and the Happenings orchestrated by the teachers and students of Black Mountain College in North Carolina.
Why Ultramarine? The Origins of a Color
Ultramarine, the shade of blue that caught Yves Klein’s imagination and which, for him, represented the realm of spirituality and the intangible, has a serious pedigree in the world of pigments. Created from the laborious processing of semi-precious gemstone, lapis lazuli, ultramarine has been, for millennia, one of the costliest pigments to produce. It gained a certain reverence in early Renaissance devotional art and became synonymous with the robes of the Virgin.
Klein cited Giotto’s fresco cycle in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, completed around 1305, as an influence. Giotto used the costly ultramarine in his depiction of the lives of Jesus and the Virgin and on the ceiling to represent the heavens. Scrovegni, the patron, was a wealthy banker who could easily afford to request ultramarine. Commissions such as this led to the long association of this sacred blue with the most reverential of artistic works.
“It was then that I remembered the colour blue, the blue of the sky in Nice that was at the origin of my career as monochromist. I started work towards the end of 1956 and in 1957 I had an exhibition in Milan which consisted entirely of what I dared to call my ‘Epoque bleue.'”
Yves Klein, 1928–1962, Selected Writings
Following the catastrophic public misunderstanding of his works in the Paris exhibitions, Klein’s focus on ultramarine deepened. In January 1957, he exhibited a series of eleven blue monochrome canvases in Milan. His fellow Nouveau Réaliste Pierre Restany wrote the accompanying text. Restany described Klein as a creator of the monochrome proposition, conqueror of the immaterial, and owner of the void. Klein was determined to create a cult of blue, emphasizing his belief that blue was a color without boundaries.
Although all the paintings were of the same blue and broadly similar proportions, they were each priced differently. Klein wanted the viewer to see that “each painting’s blue world, although of the same blue and treated in the same way, revealed itself to be of entirely different essence and atmosphere; none resembled the other anymore than pictorial moments and poetic moments resemble each other.”
IKB Becomes Official
The Milan paintings were the first to use the paint formula created by Klein in conjunction with Edouard Adam, a Parisian paint dealer. With IKB the ultramarine pigment was suspended in a synthetic medium called Rhodopas. This combination ensured that the paint kept its uniform luminosity. Before IKB, pigment had traditionally been mixed with linseed oil, which, over time, led to colors fading. In May 1960, Klein submitted an Enveloppe Soleau (a document used in France to prove the date of an idea or invention) to the French government to register his creation of International Klein Blue. There is a common misconception that he invented the color. IKB is an ultramarine similar to the shades used in the Renaissance in the commissions of influential patrons who could afford the enormous cost of the pigment. Klein registered the formula used to create his synthetic version.
IKB and Beyond
The Milan exhibition was a great success, and later, in the same year, Klein exhibited simultaneously at the Galerie Iris Clert and the Galerie Collette Allendy in Paris. He presented his monochromes at Iris Clert as he had in Milan whilst, at Collette Allendy, he offered a view into his future works beyond IKB. Sculptures, fire paintings, and his conceptual works centered around the void were featured. In celebration of the beginning of his Epoque Bleue, Klein released 1001 balloons into the Paris skies, a gesture he described as an aerostatic sculpture.
Klein continued to use IKB throughout his career, painting copies of statues The Winged Victory of Samothrace and Venus de Milo in his signature blue, amongst other pieces. However, he began to work more alongside his friend Arman and artist Pierre Restany. Together, with fellow unconventional artists Christo, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Jean Tinguely, and others, they formed the Nouveau Réalisme group, finding influence in the art of Dadaism and the Readymades of Marcel Duchamp. It was the association with Dada that, in 1961, saw Klein move away from the group he had helped to found. Klein’s success waned following the spectacle of his early IKB work, and after a period in America, he died of a heart attack in 1962 at the age of 34. IKB was to be his most enduring legacy.
Yves Klein: Blue and Beyond
Following Klein’s death, IKB’s influence on art and culture endured and continues to do so into the 21st century. Whilst the impact of IKB on the art world was dramatic, few artists have dared to use it in painting to the extent that Klein did. Its influence is more widely seen in the design world, with everything from architecture to fashion swathed in the ultimate ultramarine. Artists and galleries have regularly staged exhibitions influenced by IKB.
When he lay on a beach as a young man alongside his friends, Arman and Pascal, Klein could never have imagined the intense effect his commitment to the color blue would have on the world of art and design. International Klein Blue has its roots in the ultramarine of lapis lazuli, its base gemstone. Ultramarine became, due to the costliness of its processing and rarity, the most sought-after pigment in use from the early Renaissance works of Giotto and Cimabue via Vermeer and on into the 21st century. Klein recognized the power of its infinite depth and sought to create a pigment that would stay true to its lapis roots without fading. Ever the innovator, Klein stepped beyond the realms of the art world and sought the help of the scientific community. With the addition of Rhodopas, IKB was born.
Although Klein’s art career was cut short by his early death, his development of IKB was perhaps one of the most significant moments in art history since the invention of oil paint. Although he did not invent the color, he created a way of producing an everlasting ultramarine and ensured that International Klein Blue was instantly recognizable around the world. His legacy is, as he once described the color blue, beyond dimensions.
