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IC w9 Colors

  • HildeMaassen
  • Mar 27, 2020
  • 5 min read

Updated: Aug 15, 2020

I have previously taken the handy colors from the photos and also made a gradient based on the photos. These gradients become pictures of skies when you present them next to pictures of skies I found out because I had the prints on the table next to each other.


The photos are the ultimate abstraction that symbolize the sky, but which are actually observable in the morning on a cloudless day. These have been generated from photos where there are clouds, so I show with these photos what the sky would always look like when clouds disappear completely.


At the end of writing and researching for this post, I found out that it occupies much more people than I originally thought.


Gradient based on an image

This morning, the gradients in the sky, real Photographs on a day without clouds.


Michelle asked me why I took the colors from the images:

On a topographic map, the colors have a symbolic value; green represents trees, grass, plants. Yellow is sand and blue is water.



1692 book with colors


In 1692, as "A. Boogert" wrote a (Dutch) book about mixing colors for making watercolors. He describes in detail how to do that and in addition there are hundreds of colors mixed on almost 800 pages.

pages from book A.Boogart -1692

The book of Boogert reminds me on the Pantone- color guide, or on the paint samples I see on the shelves of the local hardware store.

Shop: Gamma; cards with al the paint colors (to take home to see what fits)


This tool, which consists of a circle with 53 colored squares with shades of blue, was invented in 1789 by the Swiss physicist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure and the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt to measure the blue in the sky. They used it in aerial experiments over Geneva, Chamonix and Mont Blanc. It helped to successfully conclude that the blueness of the sky is a degree of transparency caused by the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.

Research shows that this tool appeals to the imagination because I find work by various artists based on it and I downloaded an cyanometer app.


Cyanometer of Ljubljana by Martin Bricelj Baraga


a "monument" that measures the sk and makes images a couple of times a day. Explained in this video's



Benoit Philippe

In July 2008, Benoit Philippe built his own cyanometer because he had read about it. In his blog you can read how you can brew there. For the BBC radio (documentary Skylarking) he built one in A4 format. Using a piece of plywood he made 54 holes with a drill.

And then he applied 54 different shades of blue. To work out the shade of an area of ​​blue sky, you hold the cyanometer in front of you and peek through the holes. Move it around until you find a close match between the bit of sky you see through the hole and the blue hue painted in the square around the hole.


Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller

Voyages atmosphériques (Concerning the Blueness of the Sky)

This project is about global warming at work. It is less known that a global solar eclipse has been measured since 1950. The result of an increase in cloudiness, caused by emissions from industrial countries. These industrial clouds are decreasing. The climate continues to heat up uncontrollably and the sky becomes bluer.

The artist duo reproduced the cyanometer according to Saussure's instructions with a series of dilutions of Prussian blue and ivory black for the publication "Invent the Future With Elements of the Past", and as a potential tool for strollology or general observations of the world. Climate change is likely to cause Europe to see fewer clouds and a decrease in the relative humidity of the atmosphere. In addition, assuming continued tightening of emission standards, a decrease in aerosols and particles in the air is predicted. All three effects may lead to an increasingly bluer sky in the future.



Untitled (blue)


This work is part an installation. The spectator sits on a bench and can hear a 12-minute sound fragment through one of the four headphones. The light is adjustable.


Extract from the soundtrack

In the beginning, for all who may have testified, the sky was black, and the world was surrounded by nothing. Meteor shower is bombarding the new planet. The hot atmosphere is rich in CO2 and the air glows yellow-brown. With the meteorites, water comes and life comes from water. Time and time again the emerging land masses merge and diverge. In the oceans, blue algae reproduce in abundance using the light of the sun. This growth produces oxygen. The surrounding cloud layer is spreading. The sky turns blue. For a long time, life forms simply remain on the earth. At best, the sightless beings can only recognize darkness and light. […]

The app:


The app states that it is based on the original cyanometer. It works easily; you point it at something and slide on the ring with color lacquers until the brightness matches. Depending on the settings, you can take a picture of it.



CYANOMETER BY MARJAN VAN AUBEL FOR SWAROVSKI


Marjan van Aubel created a Cyanometer in collaboration with Swarovski's crystal experts and Design Miami in 2017. Opal has been installed in the installation, which distributes the light in the same way to all air. the opals are cut at an angle so that the light is refracted and directed at solar cells. A method that makes the solar cells work more efficiently. During the day, light is collected / harvested during the day, and when placed in a docking station it can power a lighting installation that gives the feeling of "taking the air indoors". The whole is portable.


Did you know that Blue had no name for Elise Rasmussen.


Rasmussen explores epistemological aspects of "blueness" through various historical stories. The relationship between the color blue that you experience during mountain climbing, in early photographic technologies, existing knowledge and art history is investigated. This is based on the Saussure's cyanometer. Saussure's quest to test his device and theories on blue led to a competition that inspired the first expedition to summit Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps. The search for blue has also faced challenges in early photography. With the wet colodium technique, clouds and the color blue cannot be detected. Other photographic techniques also had difficulties with the color blue, the short wavelengths. This led to innovations such as split printing (I blogged about this before, Gray did this, among other things). The color blue as a pigment is one that fades quickly and is difficult to keep. However, the cyanotype, an iron process has a very long shelf life. If it is discolored, you can simply store it in the dark for a while and the discoloration will disappear. (only not the discoloration of the paper itself). Rasmussen's project weaves these and other blue histories together and comments on issues such as [in] visibility, innovation, conquest and the competition.

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© 2019 by Hilde Maassen 

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