International Klein Blue: The Most Perfect Expression Of Blue

[rvisser]

THE MOST PERFECT EXPRESSION OF BLUE

 

"Yves Klein, born in Nice in 1928, was throughout his life determined to find a vessel for a 'spiritual' pictorial space, and it was this that led him eventually to live actions. To Klein, painting was 'like the window of a prison, where the lines, contours, forms and composition are determined by the bars'. Monochrome paintings, begun around 1955, freed him from such con­straints. Later, he said, he remembered the colour blue, 'the blue of the sky in Nice that was at the origin of my career as a monochromist' and at an exhibition in Milan in January 1957, he showed work entirely from what he called his 'blue period', having searched, as he said, 'for the most perfect expression of blue for more than a year'."- RoseLee Goldberg

If it's true that IKB is the most perfect expression of blue, I asked myself if there was an ink that closely approximated this color.

 

Using the HSB color system and a swatch from Goulet Pens, I find that Diamine Asa Blue is very close to International Klein Blue (IKB).

 

HSB color system info:

 

The HSB color system is based on three different ways of varying color which will each be explained in turn. These are:

 

 

Hue - a particular gradation of color (i.e. the shade or tint of a color)

 

Saturation - the vividness of hue (the degree of difference from gray)

 

Brightness - the percentage of brightness of the color.

 

The HSB of the attached image is:

 

International Klein Blue:

 

H: 225

S: 78

B: 60

 

The HSB of Asa Blue at a saturated point in the swatch is:

 

H: 224

S: 79

B: 60

 

It probably can't get closer than that!

 

WIKI: International Klein Blue (or IKB as it is known in art circles) was developed by French artist Yves Klein as part of his search for colors which best represented the concepts he wished to convey as an artist. IKB was developed by Klein and chemists to have the same color brightness and intensity as dry pigments, which it achieves by suspending dry pigment in polyvinyl acetate, a synthetic resin marketed in France as Rhodopas M or M60A by the firm Rhône Poulenc.^[1]

 

And from the Walker, THIS article.

 

It's interesting that nobody has mentioned Diamine Asa Blue on the network . . . at least I could find no reference to it.

 

See the swatch at Goulet Pens HERE.

 

 

 

Wiki Article on IKB HERE.

 

Below: International Klein Blue

Edited September 12, 2012 by rvisser

[mhosea]

...at least I could find no reference to it.

 

From Google search for

 

site:www.fountainpennetwork.com diamine asa blue

Edited September 12, 2012 by mhosea

[lapis]

Great post! The colour I see on my sccreen is stupendous. Sure can't disagree about the sameness of the two HSBs. But the colour I see of that ink in my pens on my papers definitely has some green in it. Funny, for me, other D's come closer to the IKB, like their Sapphire or WES Imperial.

[ukobke]

Yves Klein, born in Nice in 1928......

 

With all respect to Yves Klein, to his work in 1957, and surely to the thread posted by "rvisser" I have to say that....

 

BAYSTATE BLUE was not born that period. I am sure that even Yves Klein would admit that BAYSTATE BLUE is THE blue.

 

[Hex]

If the Asa matched the IKB I would get it in a heartbeat, but it looks to be off some. The Asa looks flat and faded. I bet if it were thicker it would be closer.

The IKB is gorgeous and was there ever a sky so blue ?

[The Good Captain]

Great post! The colour I see on my sccreen is stupendous. Sure can't disagree about the sameness of the two HSBs. But the colour I see of that ink in my pens on my papers definitely has some green in it. Funny, for me, other D's come closer to the IKB, like their Sapphire or WES Imperial.

I agree with the Diamine Sapphire; the Imperial is a possibility and even Diamine Royal blue but I reckon that the Asa has just a little bit of a green look. I saw a programme on BBC4 recently where Klein and his 'blue' was discussed.Very interesting and I remarked to my wife that it was with some relief that BSB wasn't aviailable to him at that time. Imagine the stains in Paris?!

[Uncle Red]

You'll probably need some sample to view IRL. Keep in mind that the pen you use effects the color too and so does the paper.

[marcomillions]

Well, being a geezer, and therefore with time on my hands, I rose like a fat old trout to the bait. I was surprised by how dark the Klein blue was, given its supposed origins. The jpeg following has the Klein blue to the left and right, compared to 8 inks from swatches from Goulet Pens' wonderful library of ink swatches. Consider the swatches numbered from top to bottom, 1-8. Below the jpeg is the identifying list of inks whose swatches appear in the graphic. I would advise looking at the jpeg first, not knowing which ink is which. I was surprised by some of the results.

 

[i picked these blues either because of their apparent closeness to the Klein. (I was often fooled) or because someone had mentioned them as being close to the Klein. The swatches all come from the Goulets, thus are presumably consistent methodologically. The ikb sample is from the Tate Gallery's website. It is the digitization of one of Klein's canvases, "ikb79." I have manipulated the swatches in only one way: I selected a particularly saturated section of a Goulet swatch, then I would stretch it to a uniform 0.75" x 1.125" size for placement in the graphic had the effect of homogenizing each sample, somewhat reducing its distinct color characteristics and therefore its differences from the Klein blue target.]

 

 

 

 

The inks, in order:

 

1. Noodler's Baystate Blue

2. Noodler's Liberty Elysium

3. Waterman Florida Blue

4. Aurora Blue

5. Noodler's American Eel

6. Diamine Asa Blue

7. Pilot Iroshizuku Asa-gao

8. J. Herbin Bleu océan 1670

 

Despite OP's attempt to ground the choice in objective measurements (all my attempts that way failed too), Asa Blue wasn't the closest match I found. Nor, despite another poster's claim, was Baystate Blue that close either. Nor, despite the story of its origin, did J Herbin's forthcoming Ocean Blue look much like IKB either. I'd give the prize to #2 or #3 or #5.

 

Marc

Edited September 13, 2012 by marcomillions

[rvisser]

...at least I could find no reference to it.

 

From Google search for

 

site:www.fountainpennetwork.com diamine asa blue

 

Thank you very much. I was not aware of this search method. It is very helpful. best, rv

[rvisser]

Great post! The colour I see on my sccreen is stupendous. Sure can't disagree about the sameness of the two HSBs. But the colour I see of that ink in my pens on my papers definitely has some green in it. Funny, for me, other D's come closer to the IKB, like their Sapphire or WES Imperial.

 

Thnaks, I'll check these out. All the best, rv

[rvisser]

Yves Klein, born in Nice in 1928......

 

With all respect to Yves Klein, to his work in 1957, and surely to the thread posted by "rvisser" I have to say that....

 

BAYSTATE BLUE was not born that period. I am sure that even Yves Klein would admit that BAYSTATE BLUE is THE blue.

 

 

Thanks much for the welcome. I appreciate it. If Klein took more than a year, I would think he probably came up with a blue similar to Bay State and nixed it . . . but how would we ever know? Thanks again, rv

[rvisser]

Well, being a geezer, and therefore with time on my hands, I rose like a fat old trout to the bait. I was surprised by how dark the Klein blue was, given its supposed origins. The jpeg following has the Klein blue to the left and right, compared to 8 inks from swatches from Goulet Pens' wonderful library of ink swatches. Consider the swatches numbered from top to bottom, 1-8. Below the jpeg is the identifying list of inks whose swatches appear in the graphic. I would advise looking at the jpeg first, not knowing which ink is which. I was surprised by some of the results.

 

[i picked these blues either because of their apparent closeness to the Klein. (I was often fooled) or because someone had mentioned them as being close to the Klein. The swatches all come from the Goulets, thus are presumably consistent methodologically. The ikb sample is from the Tate Gallery's website. It is the digitization of one of Klein's canvases, "ikb79." I have manipulated the swatches in only one way: I selected a particularly saturated section of a Goulet swatch, then I would stretch it to a uniform 0.75" x 1.125" size for placement in the graphic had the effect of homogenizing each sample, somewhat reducing its distinct color characteristics and therefore its differences from the Klein blue target.]

 

 

 

 

The inks, in order:

 

1. Noodler's Baystate Blue

2. Noodler's Liberty Elysium

3. Waterman Florida Blue

4. Aurora Blue

5. Noodler's American Eel

6. Diamine Asa Blue

7. Pilot Iroshizuku Asa-gao

8. J. Herbin Bleu océan 1670

 

Despite OP's attempt to ground the choice in objective measurements (all my attempts that way failed too), Asa Blue wasn't the closest match I found. Nor, despite another poster's claim, was Baystate Blue that close either. Nor, despite the story of its origin, did J Herbin's forthcoming Ocean Blue look much like IKB either. I'd give the prize to #2 or #3 or #5.

 

Marc

 

I'm impressed! Thank you for your effort: it's really quite revealing. I would agree with your assessment but lean toward Waterman Florida Blue . . . or mix this with Noodler's Liberty Elysium. Thanks again. I appreciate it. best, rv

[mhosea]

I would agree with your assessment but lean toward Waterman Florida Blue . . . or mix this with Noodler's Liberty Elysium.

 

I've not tried mixing those because I knew that Waterman Florida Blue is a rather acidic ink and Liberty's Elysium is around neutral pH. I am not sure whether the dye in Waterman Florida Blue will stay in solution if it is diluted very much with the Liberty's Elysium. Won't hurt to try.

 

OTOH, I've not found the Goulet swabs, nor even swabs that I have done myself, to be particularly helpful for telling me how an ink will look in a given pen. Brian standardized his approach, and it is useful to some extent for comparison purposes, but I don't think they are necessarily calibrated to one another well enough to draw fine distinctions. I noticed in Brian's recent video on Herbin Bleu Ocean that the Aurora Blue swatch looked like less of a match in his video on my monitor than the two swabs did on the same monitor. I would think of the swabs as stage 1. Stage 2 is purchasing a sample. Stage 3 is buying a bottle. Skip stage 2 at your peril.

 

In point of fact, I use Waterman Florida Blue with some frequency, and it simply doesn't remind me of the Klein Blue at all. Liberty's Elysium does, as does Noodler's Blue, though there's a touch more green in the latter than in the Klein Blue, I think.

[marcomillions]

Hi Mike and rv,

 

Thanks for taking the specimen sheet seriously--that is, with some skepticism. I agree that comparisons of color swatches on a monitor are often deceptive, perhaps are inevitably so for amateurs like myself. I have tried to tune my monitor following advice and with programs written for the purpose, but problems still remain. How could they not when our monitors provide additive color, while ink or any pigments we put on paper provide subtractive color, as I think we geezers used to call them?

 

Definitive is a statement like yours, Mike: "I use Waterman Florida Blue with some frequency, and it simply doesn't remind me of the Klein Blue at all." If that's the way it is, that's the way it is . . . always leaving a little wiggle room along the lines of "perhaps if we used a different nib, or wrote on different paper . . ." it would seem more like IKB.

 

And, while it does not affect how closely a given swatch seems to conform to our samples of IKB, there remains another pesky problem in that we don't know (at least, I don't) how closely our samples of IKB conform to the color we would encounter on Klein's canvases.

 

@rv: I think I too was most impressed by how close in hue Florida Blue seemed to be to IKB. Of course, now Mike has let the air out of that balloon. I was second most impressed by Liberty Elysium. And Mike is not wrong in seeing Noodler's Blue as very close-or at least so the swatches would have us believe. Below, an updated specimen sheet, removing the distant comparisons and adding Noodler's Blue. This may not be science, but it sure is fun. I advise capturing the image (right- or control-clicking on it and saving it to you computer), then blowing the image up to 200% or 300% to check the color differences.

 

 

The order of inks this time is:

 

1. Noodler's Liberty Elysium

2. Waterman Florida Blue

3. Noodler's Blue

4. Noodler's American Eel

 

Let me know if you find an ink that does remind you of the IKB we see on the Web. If you do, we can then send someone to look at a Klein painting and see how closely true, in-the-flesh IKB matches the "swatches" we have of it.

 

Marc

Edited September 13, 2012 by marcomillions

[lapis]

I'd give the prize to #2 or #3 or #5.

Marc

I'll buy that! Actually I already have!!

 

Mike

[rvisser]

Hi Mike and rv,

 

Thanks for taking the specimen sheet seriously--that is, with some skepticism. I agree that comparisons of color swatches on a monitor are often deceptive, perhaps are inevitably so for amateurs like myself. I have tried to tune my monitor following advice and with programs written for the purpose, but problems still remain. How could they not when our monitors provide additive color, while ink or any pigments we put on paper provide subtractive color, as I think we geezers used to call them?

 

Definitive is a statement like yours, Mike: "I use Waterman Florida Blue with some frequency, and it simply doesn't remind me of the Klein Blue at all." If that's the way it is, that's the way it is . . . always leaving a little wiggle room along the lines of "perhaps if we used a different nib, or wrote on different paper . . ." it would seem more like IKB.

 

And, while it does not affect how closely a given swatch seems to conform to our samples of IKB, there remains another pesky problem in that we don't know (at least, I don't) how closely our samples of IKB conform to the color we would encounter on Klein's canvases.

 

@rv: I think I too was most impressed by how close in hue Florida Blue seemed to be to IKB. Of course, now Mike has let the air out of that balloon. I was second most impressed by Liberty Elysium. And Mike is not wrong in seeing Noodler's Blue as very close-or at least so the swatches would have us believe. Below, an updated specimen sheet, removing the distant comparisons and adding Noodler's Blue. This may not be science, but it sure is fun. I advise capturing the image (right- or control-clicking on it and saving it to you computer), then blowing the image up to 200% or 300% to check the color differences.

 

 

The order of inks this time is:

 

1. Noodler's Liberty Elysium

2. Waterman Florida Blue

3. Noodler's Blue

4. Noodler's American Eel

 

Let me know if you find an ink that does remind you of the IKB we see on the Web. If you do, we can then send someone to look at a Klein painting and see how closely true, in-the-flesh IKB matches the "swatches" we have of it.

 

Marc

 

Thanks again! If you squint real hard the Noodler's Blue is indistinguishable especially on the left side where it is about the same brightness.

 

And the Florida Blue is very, very close as well. You may be nailing it down.

 

best, rv

[mhosea]

I just wanted to illustrate the case I mentioned before. I made this small because I don't want to upload it to my personal photo stream, but the top two swabs are being shown in Brian's video from yesterday. The bottom two are the sames swabs from the web site. Before I saw the video, I thought the Aurora swab was just slightly lighter than Bleu Ocean, but in the video, where they are being shown together, the difference is more obvious. I'm just saying that this is the complexity you're up against when working with images of swabs.

[marcomillions]

I'm just saying that this is the complexity you're up against when working with images of swabs.

I agree completely, Mike. But tell me: is Aurora Blue really as light as it looks in the swatch you captured from the video?

 

Marc

[mhosea]

I've never tried Aurora blue, unfortunately. From various reviews, I think in a wet pen it's reasonably dark. Here's Sandy's Review.

 

Incidentally, you might enjoy the corresponding review of Waterman Florida Blue.

 

My scans end up looking like that, too, and when wet it is vibrant, though to me it is decidedly purplish until it dries to a more grayish, less vibrant blue.

[inkstainedruth]

Hi Mike and rv,

 

Thanks for taking the specimen sheet seriously--that is, with some skepticism. I agree that comparisons of color swatches on a monitor are often deceptive, perhaps are inevitably so for amateurs like myself. I have tried to tune my monitor following advice and with programs written for the purpose, but problems still remain. How could they not when our monitors provide additive color, while ink or any pigments we put on paper provide subtractive color, as I think we geezers used to call them?

 

Definitive is a statement like yours, Mike: "I use Waterman Florida Blue with some frequency, and it simply doesn't remind me of the Klein Blue at all." If that's the way it is, that's the way it is . . . always leaving a little wiggle room along the lines of "perhaps if we used a different nib, or wrote on different paper . . ." it would seem more like IKB.

 

And, while it does not affect how closely a given swatch seems to conform to our samples of IKB, there remains another pesky problem in that we don't know (at least, I don't) how closely our samples of IKB conform to the color we would encounter on Klein's canvases.

 

@rv: I think I too was most impressed by how close in hue Florida Blue seemed to be to IKB. Of course, now Mike has let the air out of that balloon. I was second most impressed by Liberty Elysium. And Mike is not wrong in seeing Noodler's Blue as very close-or at least so the swatches would have us believe. Below, an updated specimen sheet, removing the distant comparisons and adding Noodler's Blue. This may not be science, but it sure is fun. I advise capturing the image (right- or control-clicking on it and saving it to you computer), then blowing the image up to 200% or 300% to check the color differences.

 

 

The order of inks this time is:

 

1. Noodler's Liberty Elysium

2. Waterman Florida Blue

3. Noodler's Blue

4. Noodler's American Eel

 

Let me know if you find an ink that does remind you of the IKB we see on the Web. If you do, we can then send someone to look at a Klein painting and see how closely true, in-the-flesh IKB matches the "swatches" we have of it.

 

Marc

 

Thanks again! If you squint real hard the Noodler's Blue is indistinguishable especially on the left side where it is about the same brightness.

 

And the Florida Blue is very, very close as well. You may be nailing it down.

 

best, rv

 

 

When I squint, Liberty's Elysium seems to be closer across the board.

Interesting experiment (I had never heard of IKB before). Josef Albers would be so proud.... :roflmho:

Wonder what the nice folks at Pantone would say.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth