International Klein Blue: The Most Perfect Expression Of Blue

[rvisser]

Or perhaps carpedavid has already done the work for us, over a year ago, HERE with his beautiful calligraphy and detailed discussion of Sailor Jentle Ultramarine.

 

See frothy open bottle HERE at JetPens.

Edited September 20, 2012 by rvisser

[marcomillions]

[removed erroneous version of post. corrected version follows.]

Edited September 20, 2012 by marcomillions

[marcomillions]

Hi rv,

 

I dunno. It's cranky as always, IKB. Doesn't want to be bottled, maybe. In the accompanying image, the three concentric circles are our three lightest images of IKB: No. 1 is generated from your HSB formula; No. 2 is from the Museum of Modern Art New York; and No. 3 is from the Tate Gallery in London. (I've dropped the example from the Pompidou in Paris because I think it's too dark.)

 

The swatches are proposed inks. I asked the Goulet data base what it had in blues. It proposed several dozen blues. Unfortunately, some of your recent hopes don't do so well. Letter "f" is Sailor Jentle Ultramarine. Letter "e" is Jentle Blue.

 

Two that did well are ones we'd already noted: "a" is Noodler's American Eel Blue; "b" is Noodler's Liberty's Elysium. And there were two new contenders: "c" is Namiki Blue and "d" is Platinum Mix-free Aurora Blue.

 

I couldn't find a good enough sample of the Rotring. I'm still looking.

 

I think the two I like this time around are the Eel (a) and the Mix-free Aurora (d). What do you think?

 

And remember: we still don't know how these will look in real ink, real paint, and ambient light.

 

Marc

 

Edited September 20, 2012 by marcomillions

[ukobke]

Sandy1 ALWAYS at the beginning of every ink review reminds us :

 

<b>"Please take a moment to adjust the brightness & contrast of your monitor to accurately depict this Gray Scale.<br style="color: rgb(28, 40, 55); font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(250, 251, 252); ">As the patches are neutral gray, their colour on your monitor should also be neutral gray".</b>

We all know that transferring colors from real life to pictures, screens, scans, photos etc, color changes.

Science solved this problem. Trying to approach this color, it is already written from the very beginning and analytically described by "rvisser"that:

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

So we have our color. This is ASA BLUE! It is scientifically closer fountain pen ink color to "IKB"

In case I would compare "IKB" and put them on the screen exactly same colors exactly same way and shape as "Marc.." did, the colors would be DIFFERENT.

 

For me we are not talking about "IKB" as real color of real life, but we compare the different "IKB" each one has on his/her screen compared to inks/colors/blues that are different due to our screens etc.

 

Just look above as "Marc" wrote.: No. 1 is generated from your HSB formula; No. 2 is from the Museum of Modern Art New York; and No. 3 is from the Tate Gallery in London. (I've dropped the example from the Pompidou in Paris because I think it's too dark.)

I am sure the "IKB"color in real life is different different different. (Maybe more vibrant than Baystate Blue. Who knows...)

So I still have the question: What we really compare?

( I have to admit though that it is a very interesting article and discussion and I need to congratulate all of you for the knowledge and passion you have)

 

 

Edited September 20, 2012 by ukobke

[ukobke]

[

hide

From Wikipedia

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/80/International_Klein_Blue.jpg/220px-International_Klein_Blue.jpg http://bits.wikimedia.org/static-1.20wmf10/skins/common/images/magnify-clip.pngSculpture by Yves Klein with a strong use of a color close to electric ultramarine, a bright, vivid tone of International Klein Blue.

Edited September 20, 2012 by ukobke

[rvisser]

Sandy1 ALWAYS at the beginning of every ink review reminds us :

 

<b>"Please take a moment to adjust the brightness & contrast of your monitor to accurately depict this Gray Scale.<br style="color: rgb(28, 40, 55); font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(250, 251, 252); ">As the patches are neutral gray, their colour on your monitor should also be neutral gray".</b>

We all know that transferring colors from real life to pictures, screens, scans, photos etc, color changes.

 

Science solved this problem. Trying to approach this color, it is already written from the very beginning and analytically described by "rvisser"that:

 

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

So we have our color. This is ASA BLUE! It is scientifically closer fountain pen ink color to "IKB"

In case I would compare "IKB" and put them on the screen exactly same colors exactly same way and shape as "Marc.." did, the colors would be DIFFERENT.

 

For me we are not talking about "IKB" as real color of real life, but we compare the different "IKB" each one has on his/her screen compared to inks/colors/blues that are different due to our screens etc.

 

Just look above as "Marc" wrote.: No. 1 is generated from your HSB formula; No. 2 is from the Museum of Modern Art New York; and No. 3 is from the Tate Gallery in London. (I've dropped the example from the Pompidou in Paris because I think it's too dark.)

I am sure the "IKB"color in real life is different different different. (Maybe more vibrant than Baystate Blue. Who knows...)

 

So I still have the question: What we really compare?

( I have to admit though that it is a very interesting article and discussion and I need to congratulate all of you for the knowledge and passion you have)

 

 

I really appreciate your comments:

 

Probably the only way to solve and resolve this question is to make swabs of the 10 closest matches that we can come with based on the research we are now doing, and hold them next to an actual work by Yves Klein in some museum somewhere. Is there anyone who thinks they might be able to do this?

 

rv

Edited September 21, 2012 by rvisser

[rvisser]

[

hide

From Wikipedia

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/80/International_Klein_Blue.jpg/220px-International_Klein_Blue.jpg http://bits.wikimedia.org/static-1.20wmf10/skins/common/images/magnify-clip.pngSculpture by Yves Klein with a strong use of a color close to electric ultramarine, a bright, vivid tone of International Klein Blue.

 

Beautiful! Why have we not included other works by Klein . . . Like this video highlighting many of Klein's works accompanied by Miles Davis playing 'Kinda Blue'?

 

[marcomillions]

I really appreciate your comments:

 

Probably the only way to solve and resolve this question is to make swabs of the 10 closest matches that we can come with based on the research we are now doing, and hold them next to an actual work by Yves Klein in some museum somewhere. Is there anyone who thinks they might be able to do this?

 

rv

Hi rv,

 

Nice catch with that video of Yves Klein works over Miles Davis. (All the nicer that the video was by a "convert" to Klein's work.)

 

I agree that the end of this process will have to be actual eye-balling of a Klein monochrome with some samples along of each of the promising inks we can get our hands on, and looking back and forth between the two and deciding which ink seems most like the pigment we're looking at on the wall. (One hopes this can be done discreetly. I can imagine museum guards getting very fidgety looking at one of us pasting sheets of paper with ink swabs on them up against the glass protecting a Klein painting worth hundred of thousands if not millions.)

 

As I said some posts back. I hope someone will do this for us (or more than one person, and for more than just us) in the near future. I'm splitting with curiosity. But if it doesn't happen before, I'll be in Paris in about 6 weeks and I'll go to the Pompidou and hope their Yves Klein monochrome is hanging. (If it isn't, they've got some others in IKB, so we'll then hope one of them is on display.) I'll pick a sunny day and I'll have my pockets stuffed with ink swabs.

 

In the meantime, here's another comparison plaque. The left and right halves are colored, respectively, with our samples of IKB from the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Tate Gallery, London. The four ink samples are, from top to bottom, Noodler's American Eel Blue, Noodler's Liberty's Elysium, Namiki Blue, and Platinum Mix Free Aurora Blue. We want to be looking for which of the ink samples seems to disappear most into the surrounding Klein samples. Looked at this way, I'm most impressed by the Elysium snd the Mix Free Aurora. Do you have any preferences?

 

Marc

 

[ukobke]

Right know I am at work. I had a pilot 78G in my hands full of Liberty Elysium.

 

I put some drops on a piece of paper and made them like swab. I put the sample on the screen next to the above picture.

 

You know what? The ink (Liberty Elysium) in my hands (real life) has nothing to do with the Liberty Elysium of the above picture.

Which is the closest to the picture?It is the Platinum Aurora.

 

Liberty Elysium I have in hand (real life) has nothing to do with the picture....

It would be interesting though to see HSB Asa Blue among the others.

 

Difficult mission to Paris......

[Hex]

I don't have much to add here other than that I have found this thread to be absolutely fascinating. Thank you to rvisser! Of course, now I'm off to go buy each of these inks and test them out for myself...yay (semi)science!

 

Hear, hear, this is intriguing and I too have nada to contribute, only enthusiasm.

 

Marcomillions, can Photoshop analyze a color and tell you what the component colors are ? I wonder what it would say about the IKB ?

[rvisser]

I really appreciate your comments:

 

Probably the only way to solve and resolve this question is to make swabs of the 10 closest matches that we can come with based on the research we are now doing, and hold them next to an actual work by Yves Klein in some museum somewhere. Is there anyone who thinks they might be able to do this?

 

rv

Hi rv,

 

Nice catch with that video of Yves Klein works over Miles Davis. (All the nicer that the video was by a "convert" to Klein's work.)

 

I agree that the end of this process will have to be actual eye-balling of a Klein monochrome with some samples along of each of the promising inks we can get our hands on, and looking back and forth between the two and deciding which ink seems most like the pigment we're looking at on the wall. (One hopes this can be done discreetly. I can imagine museum guards getting very fidgety looking at one of us pasting sheets of paper with ink swabs on them up against the glass protecting a Klein painting worth hundred of thousands if not millions.)

 

As I said some posts back. I hope someone will do this for us (or more than one person, and for more than just us) in the near future. I'm splitting with curiosity. But if it doesn't happen before, I'll be in Paris in about 6 weeks and I'll go to the Pompidou and hope their Yves Klein monochrome is hanging. (If it isn't, they've got some others in IKB, so we'll then hope one of them is on display.) I'll pick a sunny day and I'll have my pockets stuffed with ink swabs.

 

In the meantime, here's another comparison plaque. The left and right halves are colored, respectively, with our samples of IKB from the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Tate Gallery, London. The four ink samples are, from top to bottom, Noodler's American Eel Blue, Noodler's Liberty's Elysium, Namiki Blue, and Platinum Mix Free Aurora Blue. We want to be looking for which of the ink samples seems to disappear most into the surrounding Klein samples. Looked at this way, I'm most impressed by the Elysium snd the Mix Free Aurora. Do you have any preferences?

 

Marc

 

 

If I squint real hard, I would say: (1) Namiki Blue, and (2)Platinum Mix Free Aurora Blue

[rvisser]

Error message.

Edited September 21, 2012 by rvisser

[Lloyd]

Someone should sell Klein blue ink in a Klein bottle (note: no opening)

http://www.kleinbottle.com/images/3%20botsclaserlqm.jpg

[marcomillions]

Someone should sell Klein blue ink in a Klein bottle (note: no opening)

http://www.kleinbottle.com/images/3%20botsclaserlqm.jpg

ROFLMAO :roflmho:

 

Bravo,Lloyd! Patent it: "Design for an evaporation suppressing bottle." Then we'll offer it to the Yves Klein Foundation for the distribution of the ink. Larger, similar cans for the paint itself? (Remember, the patent has never been used to produce the paint.)

 

Can you make a version of the Coca-Cola bottle, too, and claim ownership of its design like Klein did of the sky?

 

Again, bravo.

 

Marc

[marcomillions]

Right know I am at work. I had a pilot 78G in my hands full of Liberty Elysium.

 

<snip>You know what? The ink (Liberty Elysium) in my hands (real life) has nothing to do with the Liberty Elysium of the above picture.

Which is the closest to the picture?It is the Platinum Aurora.

<snip>

Difficult mission to Paris......

Hi ukobe,

 

Thanks for your report. That's exactly the kind of report we need: not of what we're seeing on our monitors, but what the ink (or paint) looks like when it's physically present. If you have any of the other inks that have been mentioned, let us know how they appear relative to the screen representations and to each other.

 

I've put your comment (along with Mike's earlier about Waterman Florida Blue) into the travel notebook. Ah, Paris. Dirty work, but someone's got to do it.

 

I'm attaching another version of the "disappearing ink" graphic. The first four are the same (Eel, Elysium, Namiki, Mix Free Aurora), to which I added Asa Blue (since you asked for it) and Aurora (Pens) Blue (since I thought I remembered it seemed close to IKB--but I guess I was wrong).

 

Marc

 

[marcomillions]

Hear, hear, this is intriguing and I too have nada to contribute, only enthusiasm.

 

Marcomillions, can Photoshop analyze a color and tell you what the component colors are ? I wonder what it would say about the IKB ?

Hi George,

 

I'm touched that others too are enthusiastic about this quixotic search. This is silly, but also, somehow, kind of exciting.

 

You ask, "Can Photoshop . . . ?" I reply with a question: "Does a bear . . . ?" Of course. Up to a point.

 

Below is a table of various colors are reported in two different color descriptions systems (hue-saturation-brightness [or value] vs. red-green-blue) as reported by Photoshop for the IKB targets we're trying to hit and for several of the inks we've been looking at. But this is what we must always remember when looking at such values.

 

(1) I guess the conversion between systems is automatic, so the RGB numbers are "correct," we could say, for each of the reported HSB numbers whether for an ink or for one of the "versions" of IKB. But we couldn't say they were "accurate," for the following reason.

 

(2) Where error gets introduced is in assigning the HSB values for each of the ink samples. You ask, "Can Photoshop analyze a color . . . ?" The problem is with the word "analyze." I point at a given color with my mouse. Photoshop then queries the graphics card (I suppose) about what values it has assigned to the phosphors (or LEDs) at the place where my mouse is pointing. That's the only "analysis" Photoshop does. And what the graphics card answers to Photoshop depends on the original graphics file of an ink, say, PLUS any calibrating I've done of my monitor. And insofar as monitors may be "tuned" very differently, it is possible to find fairly wide divergence of the appearance of the same swatch of color on different monitors. But that divergence means the numbers reported as HSB (and converted to RGB) also may diverge from what Photoshop might report from a different. All we can fairly note are relative appearances and consistencies on the same monitor.

 

Anyway, for what it's worth, here is the table. (Sorry. I still haven't gotten the hang about tables in this editor, and no time right now. The first three numbers are the values for hue-saturation-brightness; the next three are for red-green-blue.)

 

H S B R G B

 

IKB official formula 225 78 60 33 63 153

 

IKB "generated" 225 71 62 46 74 158

IKB MOMA, NYC 227 92 62 13 44 158

IKB Tate Gallery 227 98 59 3 35 150

Noodler's Eel Blue 231 98 75 4 32 191

Liberty's Elysium 221 100 68 0 55 173

Pilot/Namiki Blue 227 88 64 20 51 163

Platinum Aurora 238 83 60 26 30 153

Sailor Jentile Blue 229 60 69 70 90 176

Jentile Ultramarine 246 59 85 102 89 217

 

Diamine Asa Blue 215 100 71 0 76 180

Aurora (Pens) Blue 240 76 75 47 48 192

 

Does this help in any way?

 

Marc

[nana_kathy]

Oddly enough, I have a bottle of Rotring Brilliant Ultramarine on my desk, and a pen loaded with Noodlers' Liberty's Elysium in my purse! What a coincidence... ... In my writing samples, the Ultramarine has way too much purple... when compared to the Liberty's Elysium... I don't have a way to do a proper swab here at work, but dipped a clean pen in the Ultramarine, then wiped both on a paper towel. They're not even close. Will try to post pictures tonight.

[ukobke]

Marc, RGB figures are o.k

 

I think HSV/HSB figures are not o.k according to my photoshop.

[marcomillions]

If you had been reading this thread, you know we'd reached a point where actually eye-balling IKB was the next necessary step. Since my regular schedule was calling me back to Paris in November, I volunteered to do the eye-balling if no one else had a chance to before me. Here is the report I threatened to make, in two parts. At the end, there are some options to consider in covering the final last distance toward a solution.

 

I finally got to the Pompidou Center to see an example (actually 3) of International Klein Blue (IKB) in our quest to find a blue ink that matched it, or came close. There were 19 possible contenders in our final sample. Do we have a winner? No. Close, but not yet. Full report follows in two parts.

 

Here's the first part. It was kind of a wild ride. There were plenty of revisions of my original hypotheses and judgments along the way. Several had been predictable, and I had expected I would have to make them. For example, I expected judgments up and down of individual inks to change based on the difference between additive color (our monitors) and subtractive color (pigments in paint or ink). But in addition to these foreseeable challenges. my expectations were also radically upset twice.

 

In preparation for my eventual face-to-face with IKB in Paris, I pored over the on-line Goulet swatches of blue inks, trying to come up with those which l thought looked most like our several examples of IKB. (These examples, by the way, were not identical eve with each other, due to artifacts of digitization.) I obsessively made color wheels, checking swatches against the IKB examples; I made tables of the data in the technical color descriptions. (IKB can be described exactly in either of the two standard color description systems: in hue-saturation-brightness it is uniquely described as 225/78/60; as red-green-blue it is described as 33/63/153. By the way, no online example exactly matched these values, though they all came close, and much closer than even the best contenders among inks.) In the end, I narrowed the contenders down to 19 blues which seemed particularly close to IKB either to the eye, or by the numbers, or--because I gave eye-witness reports of inks I hadn't seen a lot of weight--by a moving claim by a user of a particular ink that it should be considered.

 

Next, since I knew the colors would shift from their on-screen representations to their appearance on paper, I made my own swatches of the inks. Since I owned only one of the inks, I wound up buying 18 samples from the Goulets to complete the list. (Thanks, guys. What a tremendous resource you have been from start to finish of this project. And absolutely lightning-fast delivery!) The 19 blues were:

 

Diamine Asa Blue

Diamine Imperial Blue

Diamine Sapphire Blue

J. Herbin 1670 Bleu océan

J. Herbin Eclat de Saphir

Montegrappa Blue

Noodler's Baystate Blue

Noodler's Blue

Noodler's Blue Eel

Noodler's Liberty's Elysium

Omas Blue

Pilot Iroshizuku Ajisai (Hydrangea)

Pilot Iroshizuku Asa-gao (Morning Glory)

Pilot Namiki Blue

Platinum Mix-Free Aurora Blue

Private Reserve DC Supershow Blue

Rohrer & Klingner Konigsblau (Royal Blue)

Sailor Jentle Blue

Sailor Jentle Ultra Marine

 

I then made swatches of these inks--and examples of text in them--on 32 lb Hammermill multi-use laser paper, a paper that has always behaved well with my FPs. The FPs used were 9 Hero 616s bought specifically for this competition and carefully flushed between changes of ink.

 

There were no surprises at this stage, for which I was grateful. My swatches were never identical to the Goulet online swatches, but I never expected them to be. They certainly resembled the Goulet swatches, and reflected the significant characteristics of the inks as first identified in the online swatches: e.g. the relative greenness or purpleness of various blues.

 

The surprises came when I decided that, for thoroughness, I ought to do a second set of swatches on fancier paper to make sure there were no surprises based on the paper used. The "fancier" paper I used was the White version of the Tomoe River lightweight paper that is widely discussed elsewhere in this forum.

 

Oops. Serious surprises. The Tomoe River swatches often differed rather dramatically from the ones on the Hammermill copier paper. The colors were more striking. Yes, I expected that. What I hadn't expected was that in some cases chemicals in the TR paper reacted with chemicals in the ink sample to create a color quite different from the color that appeared on the copier bond. In one instance it was as if the TR performed a spectroscopic analysis of the ink, revealing an almost pure purple component distinct from the ink's blue pigment.

 

I made no assumptions that one paper was a more accurate a representation of the ink. But I did tend to favor inks which remained consistent across the two surfaces. In the end, that turned out to be less significant than I expected.

 

Whenn I completed the swatches, it was clear that certain contenders wouldn't make it to the next round. I took their swatches to Paris anyway, but I didn't expect them to figure. Nor did they. In the "flesh," some of the blues, including some of the most popular and charming, were simply out-of-bounds because they were either way too green or way too purple. What had put them into the pool was either their punch (the greeny blues, for example, are often very lively and charming) or the conviction that ultramarine (the paint on which IKB is based is often described as an ultramarine) should contain a notable purple component. But some inks were, in real life, simply too green or too purple to reflect IKB accurately. Still, they played a part in focussing my attention.

 

I decided to concentrate on inks which were most strikingly blue--no green, minimal purple, but deeply, intensely blue. I had a number of favorites and even one front-runner. (Spoiler: boy, was I going to be surprised.)

 

And so I took my 38 swatches to the Pompidou Center in Paris, the national modern art museum, where I knew that at least 3 examples of IKB were on display.

 

My report from Paris in the next post.

 

Marc

[marcomillions]

Part 2 of IKB report: face-to-face with IKB in Paris

 

As I went through the entrance to the permanent collection of the Pompidou Center, I asked the young man scanning my membership card, "Do you know where I'll find the Yves Kleins?" "One floor up, all the way in back," he answered without hesitation. I took that as a bad sign. The administration of this very large museum had obviously placed the Kleins far, far away in the nutcase galleries. Despite that decision, enough people were beating a path to his door that the kid at the outer door knew just where to find him.

 

I was not wrong about the significance of this brief exchange. The three Kleins, all in IKB, are as far away from the main path in the museum as you can get. Nonetheless, in the roughly one hour I spent there, there was continuous stream of people coming to see them. And these people didn't just nod at them as they walked by, they stopped and looked and considered and sometimes took picture after picture of them. I was sitting there doing something a little weird, shuffling through my 38 swatches, holding them up to the IKB picture, making notes on them, sweating on them. Not one person asked me what I was doing. It was completely clear to them. No one asked me why I was doing that. They already knew.

 

The three IKB examples in the Pompidou are (left to right, if you are looking at them) a statue of a man, the figure is truncated around mid-thigh, and the entire figure is colored with IKB; in the center of the display is a monochrome painting, a canvas uniformly covered with IKB; on the right is a sculpture of a tree growing that looks suspiciously like a can of paint being poured, the stream of paint supporting the can as the trunk of the tree, everything colored with IBK. Despite the physical difference of the three works--which ought to make it harder to be sure of color identity, all three works are manifestly in the same color.

 

 

But here's the problem. IKB remains as elusive as it has been up to this point. I think we're much closer. The question now is, How many more blues should we look at to make sure we haven't left some stone unturned. That's more or less a practical question, and in the end depends on how many as yet untested inks would fit the bill for matching the color.

 

IKB in real life is different--but in slippery ways--from the color we've been speculating about. First, it is quite dark. Forget sky blue (unless you're thinking of sky at dusk); forget "brilliant" blues. IKB is much darker than that. It is never going to be called "brilliant," though adjectives like "profound" may be appropriate. Of the three or four examples we had of IKB the one which turned out to be closest to what I saw in the Pompidou is a similar--very similar--canvas at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The digitized image of the Pompidou's own canvas is too light. (The Pompidou does sell a postcard of the image, and the postcard reates an impression very much like that of the painting. It has the right hue, thhe right darkness, even something of the presence the canvas has.) Here, at least, is the MOMA IKB which looks like the Pompidou's canvas does:

 

 

Second, IKB is, I guess, a true ultramarine. When you compare it to inks named "ultramarine" you say, "No, no. They're way too purple. This is a blue." (In fact, any ink with "ultramarine" iin its name is amost certainly going to have too much purple in it.) But when you compare the painting to inks that look entirely blue, you say, "Hmm. IKB certainly looks more purply than this." That's what we're looking for: a blue that gives the impression of having a touch of purple in it, but has no purple in it.

 

Finally, the most elusive of all. This color has a quality that gives it real presence. I don't know how to account for that. It's a certain kind of vividness. The color is somehow more "there" with you than other blues. In comparing inks to the IKB, in addition to color or brightness mismatches, many of the samples I brought were simply lacking that sense of "presence." On the other hand, some ink samples had something that gave them that sort of presence (no, I can't describe it, but you'll recognize it when you see it), so I remain hopeful we will be able to find an ink that can match even this aspect of IKB.

 

Complicating all of this is that it seemed impossible to take a photo of IKB. Now, IKB looks very much like the MOMA example above. but when I tried to photograph it, whether by itself or with its two other examples that flank it, what turned up in my Ricoh was this:

 

 

No matter what ruse I chose--changing the declared light source (i.e. going from Incandescent to Flourescent to Sunday or Outdoor Cloudy), or changing the exposure--it was all to no avail. The IKB comes out like the image just above. Weird. This was apparently a common problem. I saw tourists wanting a photo of the canvas, and/or with one of their relatives standing near it front of it, taking the photo, shaking their heads, taking another photo, shaking their heads and walking away.

 

Here are the test results with whatever notes Imade. I came to Paris with 5 or 6 front-runners. The first moment I saw IKB, all but one of them went out immediately. It's a good thing I had brought the other 14 previously also-ran swatches to France. Four out of five finalists came from that pool. Here are the five finalists in order, and with notes.

 

1. Noodler's Baystate Blue. "This ink has something like the "presence" the painting displays. The Hammermill swatch was closer to IKB than the TR swatch, which was too purple."

 

2. Private Reserve DC Supershow Blue. "This ink also has something of the prresence of the paint. It is much closer to IKB than you'd expect, but lacks some purple. It's presumably because of that that the TR swatch comes vcloser to IKB than the Hammermill." [Note: the TR stock tended either to bring out purple that was in an ink, or perhaps to add purple to it.]

 

3. J. Herbin 1670 Bleu océan. "The TR is a better match, though even it looks a little short on purple. This ink lacks presence."

 

4. Diamine Sapphire Blue. "The Hammermill is the closer match, but it is too blue. On the other hand, the TR is too purple. Is it possible to come in somewhere between the two? Lacks presence."

 

5. Platinum Mix-Free Aurora Blue. "Somewhere between the two? Lacks presence."

 

Here are the swatches of the five finalists:

 

 

And here are the five arrayed next to the MOMA IKB that looks like the Pompidou's IKB:

 

 

What now? Knowning a little better now what we want, I'm going back to the Goulet's swatches to see if there are any I rejected that now I'd like to look at. If any of you think mixing up our ink from other inks is feasible and worth trying, let us know.

 

I'd also like to run a poll. We're down to a very few front-runners. I'd like to poll people who have actually used these front-running inks about this elusive property of "presence." Which of these inks do they think have it? what's its origin? any question that would be useful in pointing us toward one of the finalists rather than another. But I've never done a poll, and wording the question would be crucial. So, any suggestions you may have about how to put the poll together would be appreciated.

 

Final thought: As I sat there looking at the IKB, I was not unconscious to the possibility this was all a grand hoax. Was Klein serious about finding the most perfect expression of blue? Funny, then, to pick a color from a catalogue that is named Ulltramarine. And yet, the color you see on the wall is blue, not purple. But it is an especially deep blue. And a cannily mysterious one. Why else were all those people making their way to the back of beyond in this museum to look at it and wonder at it? Why did they look at me, sweating like a pig over my swatches, trying to keep them dry, with a look that said, "Oh, him? Quite mad, y'know. I know just how he feels."

 

Marc