International Klein Blue: The Most Perfect Expression Of Blue

[ukobke]

Narc, this is a great job you made.

 

I was very anxious to read these thematics. They are really great. Analyzed the best way. Since the last time we discussed I increased my ink collection with more than ten blues and making numerous mixes.

 

As I understand there is no similarity of IKB with any "ink blue". The inks you mention as final, are very very different to each other..

 

I think the only person that can choose ONE ink that would be close to IKB is you. In this case forget technicalities, and speak with your feelings which one (or none) is close to IKB.

 

Really A GREAT JOB.

 

Thank you!

[marcomillions]

As I look at the final paragraphs and graphics of the report, I realize I left out one piece of my methodology which I should make clear. It no doubt introduces artifacts of its own, but since it would introduce them to every sample I used, the comparisons ought to be consistent across all the comparisons I made, and so should not falsify any results. I didn't notice any problem, but if you see a reason for condemning the practice, don't hesitate to say so.

 

If you look at the graphic of the Goulet swatches of the 5 "finalists," you'll notice that no swatch is uniform. Some parts are covered more thickly in ink, sometimes in thin areas you may see some separation of three hues that make up the color. If you look at the representations of the finalists in the last graphic--that is, the color "wheel" in comparison with IKB--you'll notice that the ink color examples are each homogeneous. Each is the same color across the entire sample square. Wha??

 

I used Photoshop extensively in putting these comparisons together, and in analyzing the color system results for each color. If you sample a Goulet swatch at different places inside the swatch, you wind up with different RGB or HSB values--for the same ink. Hmm. Not the most desirable position to be in. So, for each Goulet swatch, I would select the whole middle of the swatch, make a new swatch from that selection (you know: "New from clipboard"), and then I would use the special effect function "Average" to average the value throughout the sample. That seemed to me a reasonable compromise. If you see a problem with the decision, speak up.

[marcomillions]

I was very anxious to read these thematics. . . . Since the last time we discussed I increased my ink collection with more than ten blues and making numerous mixes.

 

As I understand there is no similarity of IKB with any "ink blue". The inks you mention as final, are very very different to each other..

 

I think the only person that can choose ONE ink that would be close to IKB is you. In this case forget technicalities, and speak with your feelings which one (or none) is close to IKB.

. . .

Thank you!

Hi ukobe,

 

Thank you for your compliments. They mean a lot to me because you've been with this inquiry right from the start.

 

I'll step back a moment and see if in fact my "gut" (of which there is quite a bit) prefers one or another of the finalists as IKB. But I wouldn't want to be the only person doing that. I invite you--especially with your TEN blues!!--and any other readers to reflect on the inks you regularly use to see if one or another of them jumps out as a real possibility for a match.

 

You can rely pretty solidly on that MOMA sample of IKB. That's pretty much the color I saw on the wall of the museum. And if you had the samples of the 5 finalists in hand when you looked at it, you'd see the similarities which got them there as well as their differences.

 

And ask yourself whether any of your inks seem especially to have this "presence" I wish I could explain better. For example, I like the two Pilot nano-pigment inks (black and blue/black) a lot. Both have a lot of that presence to me. The blue, unfortunately, is not the right hue for IKB, but it's got that presence. If you know another blue in your collection that has that presence and is closer to IKB, let us know.

 

Thanks again for your good wishes.

 

Marc

[ribbit]

Marc, I salute your dedication! Did you consider Sailor Sky High?

[MCN]

Hi Marc

 

I've been following this thread with interest. It's just the kind of obsessive thing I really like -- good job!

 

A couple of thoughts: I've accumulated around 50 blue samples over time from the Goulets and of them, my swatch of Liberty's Elysium looks the closest to your MOMA example on an iPad screen. How did this compare in real life?

 

You also mention a postcard from the Pompidou that sounds like it is as close to conveying the IKB experience as we might have, short of seeing the works in person. Do you know of a way to get a batch of these? If so, if a number of us could get one, we could take a crowdsource approach of many people comparing lots of combinations of pens, inks, and papers. Perhaps an FPN member in Paris would be willing to help?

 

Anyway, thanks again for all your efforts and excellent reporting!

Edited November 17, 2012 by MCN

[marcomillions]

Marc, I salute your dedication! Did you consider Sailor Sky High?

Hi ribbit,

 

Thanks for the good wishes. I didn't try Sky High. I just went to look at it. I'd say it's almost surely got too much green in it, but, as is so often the case, because of that it looks like an absolutely charming blue ink--just not IKB.

 

I've been following this thread with interest. It's just the kind of obsessive thing I really like . . .

Hi MCN,

You're a man or woman after my own heart. I lived in Ann Arbor for almost 30 years before moving to Ypsilanti, and then retiring to my current haunts. Is it something about the water?

 

I've accumulated around 50 blue samples over time from the Goulets and of them, my swatch of Liberty's Elysium looks the closest to your MOMA example on an iPad screen. How did this compare in real life?

I also thought Liberty's Elysium looked very close to IKB when I was manipulating it onscreen, and even in the swatches I made. But, oddly enough, when I got in front of the real IKB, it wasn't even close. Like Sky High which ribbit suggested, it's a blue I find altogether charming, but it ain't IKB.

 

You also mention a postcard from the Pompidou that sounds like it is as close to conveying the IKB experience as we might have, short of seeing the works in person. Do you know of a way to get a batch of these? If so, if a number of us could get one, we could take a crowdsource approach of many people comparing lots of combinations of pens, inks, and papers. Perhaps an FPN member in Paris would be willing to help?

How would this crowdsourcing work? What do you need? How many postcards? I ask because I'm your FPN member in Paris.

 

Best wishes,

 

Marc

[ribbit]

Hmm, how interesting! I do normally see green in blues very easily, but I don't in Sky High. Color perception is so YMMV. I know my husband and I certainly don't see paint colors the same.

[marcomillions]

I do normally see green in blues very easily, but I don't in Sky High. Color perception is so YMMV..

hi ribbit,

 

I agree that color perception is way personal and tricky. What I try to be careful about is stsying consistent. So, even if I'm introducing some kind of distortion because of my monitor settings, say, I figure as long as I don't re-calibrate the monitor in the middle of the experiment, every example is being treated the same, at least. And, if possible, I look to see if there's some objective evidence to back up any descriptions I make.

 

So, for example, I look at the color description system results for each of the inks I'm trying to match to IKB. The problems enter right from the start. IKB has "official" values in the two systems: its RGB (red/green/blue) is "officially" 33/63/153; its HSB (hue/saturation/brightness) values are 225/78/60. That having been said, no example of IKB that I've had on my computer and checked with Photoshop has ever returned those values. The MOMA example of IKB that I am now saying looks (to my eyes) most like the IKB I saw on the wall of the museum has these values: RGB 37/34/150; HSB 242/77/59.

 

When I "averaged" the Goulet online swatch of the Sailor Sky High Blue it reported out these values: RGB 54/121/220; HSB 216/75/86. Notice a much higher Green value than the IKB, which is "overcome" by as high blue value, which makes the ink look blue, not green. By way of comparison, an ink with a similar HSB profile, Diamine Asa Blue--HSB 215/100/71 (the Hue value is expressed in degrees--the location on a color wheel which specifies the hue which is then further determined by its intensity [saturation] and lightness or darkness [brightness or value]), Diamine Asa's H value is notably close to Sky High--has much the same charm and cheerfulness as Sky High does. I think that charm comes from the savvy use of green in the mix.

 

This wheel locates the primary hues by their "angle." True blue, you notice, is at 240º, angles smaller than that tend toward cyan (which I guess I should have been saying rather than "green"); angles greater tend toward magenta. (Chart from http://www.web-colors-explained.com/hsb_01.php)

 

(Though notice that Diamine Asa's actual Green value in the RGB system--RGB 0/76/180--is not especially high, though it is high in proportion to both its Red and Blue values.)

 

A further comparison: Noodler's Liberty's Elysium shows a color profile similar to Sky High and Diamine Asa: RGB 0/55/173; HSB 221/100/68.

[MCN]

You're a man or woman after my own heart.

 

Man, as it happens.

 

How would this crowdsourcing work? What do you need? How many postcards?

 

Well, I hadn't thought this out completely, but in general my idea was that if we could get a postcard in the hands of everyone interested, each person could make up swatches with the pens ink and paper he or she had and compare them to the postcard, reporting the results back here. I'd be happy to mail out the individual postcards if you sent the batch of them to me. People could PM me with their interest and address and I could forward the count to you. This leaves open the question of paying for the postcards and the shipping to me.

 

Now as to whether there is any value to lots of people reporting subjective results all using different methods, I can't really say. One thing that I think is amply demonstrated so far is that there is very limited value in trying to make fine color judgements using online scans and photos.

 

Regards,

Martin

[marcomillions]

Well, I hadn't thought this out completely, but in general my idea was that if we could get a postcard in the hands of everyone interested, each person could make up swatches with the pens ink and paper he or she had and compare them to the postcard, reporting the results back here. I'd be happy to mail out the individual postcards if you sent the batch of them to me. People could PM me with their interest and address and I could forward the count to you. This leaves open the question of paying for the postcards and the shipping to me.

 

Now as to whether there is any value to lots of people reporting subjective results all using different methods, I can't really say. One thing that I think is amply demonstrated so far is that there is very limited value in trying to make fine color judgements using online scans and photos.

Hello Martin,

 

I think that seems an easy way to proceed. Sending cards from Paris to everyone who wanted one might turn out to be a burdensome expense. But buying a bunch of cards and sending them to you in a block will probably be a manageable expense for me, and hopefully not too much for you mailing them in the States. So if people PM you about their interest and you let me know the number needed, I'll get you the cards.

 

This might also be the proper way to proceed. Back at post #36, rvisser, who was OP of this thread, answered a post from ukobke which had finally asked the until then unasked question, "Why are you doing this?" I thought the answer was moving, and was the right answer either because it might well be what Klein intended in looking for a "most perfect expression of blue", or because--if it turned out Klein was merely pulling our legs--it nonetheless treated his challenge with a seriousness it deserved, even if he hadn't meant it.

 

rvisser began by quoting Kandinsky (I've shortened it a little here):

 

"The power of profound meaning is found in blue. . . . The ultimate feeling it creates is one of rest. When it sinks almost to black, it echoes a grief that is hardly human. When it rises to white, a movement little suited to it, its appeal to men grows weaker and more distant. - from Wassily Kandinsky, "Concerning the Spiritual in Art, 1912).

 

and then went on to the answer (I've shortened this a bit too):

 

So, perhaps, no matter what the medium -- ink, paint, clothing, or the vast blue sky -- blue speaks to the human soul in its deepest profundity. . . . One might ask then, which blue might most closely approximate this profundity . . . and one might also wish to write with ink that reminds one of this experience, or draws one toward this experience . . . so that even the simplest act of writing might "effect the quality of the day" and draw us closer to our authentic being.

 

Not bad, huh? Take that, Yves Klein. So, if the point is to have a pen filled with an ink that reminds us of IKB as the most perfect expression of blue, and, by having and using that, from time to time, to remind ourselves of what speaks to the soul's deepest profundity, with all its effects on our understanding, on the world, on all that stuff, then, knowing that what the color will look like will depend also on what paper we're using and what nib, it's probably the proper time to turn the choice of ink over to each individual. With a good enough example, and some guidelines, we can each find the blue ink that best matches IKB in the circumstances of our own use.

 

Good enough example: if you'll trust me, that postcard is a very good representation of the impression the IKB exhibited in the museum made on me.

 

Guidelines: (1) I'd start by looking at the 5 finalists I named in my report from Paris. But I'm also going to pore over other swatches now that I have a much more concrete sense of the color I'm looking for. If you find an ink you think matches better than those, trust your own judgment. Or if you want, send me a swatch and I'll go over and check it. (PM me for my address.)

 

(2) I'm going to be looking for blues that SEEM to have a fair amount of purple in them, but that aren't really purple. I think Klein really understood ultramarine. Fundamentally and essentially, ultramarine isn't a purply blue. It's the blue you get when you grind up lapis lazuli. Aha. If you have some experience looking at early Renaissance paintings, you know that blue. It isn't purply, it's just so profound a blue that it seems purplish. It's name is surely a pun. Some source said it was called ultramarine because it came from "beyond the sea," i.e. from Asia. Maybe. But that sounds thin and fishy to me. It was also "beyond the sea" in the sense of "bluer than the sea."

 

(3) The color has got to have "presence." It's got to take the page over, to leap off the page, to give words written in it more attention than words written in other blues. You know, Klein patented IKB. But you aren't really allowed to patent a color. Patents are for processes. Klein really patented the process for fixing this color. He patented its medium. And maybe he was right to do so, since this blue has a punch that other blues do not, and perhaps that comes from some blessed combination of pigment and medium.

 

I, for my part, will go on for a while trying to find "exactly" the right match of ink to paint. For if Klein was so dogmatic as to patent his IKB as the most perfect blue, I feel I've got an obligation to be just as dogmatic as he.

 

Best,

 

Marc

[emiliovillegas]

I love blue inks. It's almost the only color I like to use for university. Black is too boring for me I guess.. Just got myself a nice bottle of Diamine Asa Blue! Can't wait to ink some pens up with that ink!

[MCN]

Not bad indeed Marc.

 

Your offer to buy and ship the postcards is most generous. So let's proceed. If anyone here is interested in participating in this group experiment, please PM me with your postal address by this Wednesday. I will send the number of participants to Marc and when I receive the postcards I will forward one to each participant. Anyone worldwide is invited. (If it happens that dozens of people outside the US join in, I may request a small sponsorship to help with postage. Otherwise, it's on me.)

 

If you request to participate, your obligations are:

- make experimental swabs, writing samples, or other tests with whatever pens inks and papers you have available and think appropriate

- consider Marc's post 70 above and evaluate your samples with those ideas in mind

- report your results on this thread; scans or photos not required but you can post them if they successfully capture something you are trying to describe.

[rvisser]

MCN:

 

Thanks for your interest in this seemingly abstract exploration . . . and thanks for your generous offer to assist, moving this to another level. I will send you my address by PM forthwith and, by doing so, encourage others to do the same. Rest assured that, if this gets financially out of hand, you will find the needed resources in those of us who are most interested in the exploration.

 

We would like this to be a pretty good-sized party of explorers to give more validity to our results. Perhaps our exploration will deliver only a qualified result, one that could only be addressed by the creation of a new ink . . . one that all of us will have had a hand in creating. I wonder what it would be called . . . .hmmmmmmm! Perhaps, at some point, an ink manufacturer should be alerted to our effort.

 

Please, everyone, join in!

 

If you are not quite sure about what is going on here, as is quite possible, post your confusion on this thread. Perhaps, at this point, we need a brief summary. See MCN's guidelines above and let's see what we find out. Will there be a consensus?

 

In closing, I must note again that Marcomillions has carried out a most valuable, and perhaps unprecedented, exploration.

[MCN]

A couple of thoughts. First, rvisser, thanks for your kind words. If FPN isn't the most positive and wonderful place on the interwebs I don't know what is.

 

Second, I've been thinking about what we've been trying to do. You know, looking at something painted with IKB isn't like looking at a laser beam, i.e., a color of a single wavelength. there is a whole complex spectrum of reflected light from that paint. What are the odds that any commercial fountain pen ink will have a similar spectral response? The details of this are way beyond my expertise; does anyone here have the knowledge or equipment to measure such things?

 

(Don't get me wrong, I'm still excited to go forward with our postcard experiment.)

[marcomillions]

What are the odds that any commercial fountain pen ink will have a similar spectral response? The details of this are way beyond my expertise; does anyone here have the knowledge or equipment to measure such things?

Hi Martin,

 

I don't have a scientific answer to your question, but I have a pseudo-scientific hypothesis. I'm convinced that there's more than one way to skin the cat. Here is a table (it's not really a table, sorry: it's a picture of a table--I just got tired of the columns of tables in my posts not lining up because I got the html wrong) of the HBS values for a selection of blue inks. Our target, in this case the MOMA IKB canvas, has a blue-ish background; the five "finalists" I picked looking at the Pompidou's IKB canvas and my swatches have yellow backgrounds. The remaining blues are either ones with partisans who wrote about them to this thread or are blues I chose after having been to see the IKB at the Pompidou, which means I currently think those are pretty close, too.

 

 

Remember: the fundamental hue of a color is expressed as degree value on a color wheel. That is the H value of a color. (And the other two qualities of color can be pictured as a cone, with the colors nearest the circumference of the base of the cone the most highly saturated colors [the most purely their hues], and the colors nearest the base [in the drawing of this "upside-down" cone] being the lightest versions of their hues.)

 

 

You'll notice that these blues, which are all supposedly close to IKB are almost literally all over the map in terms of the hue--running from near-magenta to near-cyan, 35 degrees of the color circle. In the circle below, arrow 1 is the location of the most magenta, PR DCA Supershow, arrow 2 is our IKB example, arrow 3 is Edekstein Tanzanite, and arrow 4 is Diamine Asa, the most cyan of the ink hues.

 

 

What makes them all appear relatively close to IKB are choices of how to handle saturation and brightness (value).

 

My point is simply that we don't need to find a spectral match, or a match of any other measurable quality or constituent between IKB ad a given ink. It may be that an ink relatively distant from the hue of Klein's blue makes the best-lookingy nmatch.

[MCN]

Hello again everyone,

 

The postcards that marcomillions has generously purchased for us have arrived in sunny Ann Arbor (or Pittsfield Township to be precise). I will be mailing them out no later than this weekend.

 

My initial reactions to seeing the postcard:

 

If this captures IKB at all, then IKB is not simply so blue that it gives the impression of purple, it is definitely a purplish blue. My wife, who has an exquisite sense of color, said "Oh, royal blue" when she saw it, by which she meant a purple blue. What's interesting is that none of the images in this thread so far gave any impression of this. But that squares with my experience of looking at Goulet's blue samples (even on several different displays) and then comparing the results with what I see with samples of the inks on paper. The screen images give only a very approximate sense of the actual color of the ink on paper.

 

Based on the Q-tip swabs of the 50 or so samples of blues that I have the closest to the postcard that I have is Aurora Blue (not Platinum but the Italian company Aurora) which is almost spot on. Next closest is Bay State Blue.

 

But there are so many factors that can change how the color of an ink appears. For one thing, I think that the very fact that the letters we write usually consist of relatively thin strokes makes the color look different from large swatches of the same ink. Not to mention the wetness of the pen, and the different types of paper.

 

Also, the cards are printed with a pretty glossy finish. I wonder how that compares to how glossy or matte the actual IKB objects are. This surely also changes the impression of the color.

 

So, watch your mailbox for the postcard and let us know what you find.

[marcomillions]

My initial reactions to seeing the postcard:

 

If this captures IKB at all, then IKB is not simply so blue that it gives the impression of purple, it is definitely a purplish blue. My wife, who has an exquisite sense of color, said "Oh, royal blue" when she saw it, by which she meant a purple blue. What's interesting is that none of the images in this thread so far gave any impression of this. But that squares with my experience of looking at Goulet's blue samples (even on several different displays) and then comparing the results with what I see with samples of the inks on paper. The screen images give only a very approximate sense of the actual color of the ink on paper.

 

Based on the Q-tip swabs of the 50 or so samples of blues that I have the closest to the postcard that I have is Aurora Blue (not Platinum but the Italian company Aurora) which is almost spot on. Next closest is Bay State Blue.

 

But there are so many factors that can change how the color of an ink appears. For one thing, I think that the very fact that the letters we write usually consist of relatively thin strokes makes the color look different from large swatches of the same ink. Not to mention the wetness of the pen, and the different types of paper.

 

Also, the cards are printed with a pretty glossy finish. I wonder how that compares to how glossy or matte the actual IKB objects are. This surely also changes the impression of the color.

Hi Martin,

 

I'm glad the cards arrived. One piece of advice in looking at the card as an image of IKB: the card looks most like IKB when you look at in daylight but not sunlight. Avoiding sunlight cuts down the effect of the glossiness; looking at the color in daylight lightens it just a little.

 

I'm very curious to hear others' experiences and judgments. I agree with you that Baystate is very close, though I didn't think Aurora(Pens) Blue was as close as you do. I stick to a touchstone I use that I mentioned to you back in post #70: "I think Klein really understood ultramarine. Fundamentally and essentially, ultramarine isn't a purply blue. It's the blue you get when you grind up lapis lazuli. . . . If you have some experience looking at early Renaissance paintings, you know that blue. It isn't purply, it's just so profound a blue that it seems purplish."

 

I agree with you completely that "the very fact that the letters we write usually consist of relatively thin strokes makes the color look different from large swatches of the same ink. Not to mention the wetness of the pen, and the different types of paper." To which I would add that nature of the paper's surface may create effects equivalent to differing effects of IKB's being applied to glossy or matte surfaces.

 

Good luck everyone.

 

Marc

[inkstainedruth]

This has been a really interesting thread. I keep wondering, though, whether there will be any sort of consensus.

A few years ago I was trying to match paint at Home Depot. I had a sample swatch of aluminum cladding from my new windows and the HD paint counter had one of those computerized scanners. They tried three times to match the green from the sample, and every time it ended up looking way too teal in the can. I gave up in disgust, and HD was stuck with three cans of teal/green tinted paint....

And we still haven't gotten the slats that fake the three-over-one design of the old windows painted. :bonk:

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[MCN]

(BTW, the postcards went out in the post this morning.)

 

Tricky business, this color matching.

 

The other day, I went back and re-read this thread and some of the original references that rvisser provided. The thing that hit me that I somehow glided over originally, is that one of Klein's principal aims was to replicate the appearance of dry pigment with paint. Also I paid more attention to the mentions that the pigment involved was ultramarine. Again, I think we've demonstrated over and over again here that the more times a color gets "reproduced" in some other way than the original, things tend to go terribly astray. So I said to myself, "Self, why don't you get some dry ultramarine pigment and see what this Klein fellow was driving at originally?"

 

And so I got an ounce of ultramarine pigment from an art store. Well, now I know what the presence that marcomillions talks about is. The pigment is so blue it's amazing. When you look at it in the jar it's almost radiant. Not fluorescent, but very very intense. I think a lot of this has to do with the pigment being a very fine powder that is completely matte, without any sparkle or shine to distract from the color.

 

One note to the postcard recipients: the pigment leans purple to only a very tiny amount. The postcard is much more purple than the pigment. Comparing swabs (not writing) of the ink samples that I have, I think that Iroshizuku asa gao is the closest match to the pigment I have, although it's not exactly a match. Of course, there are various manufacturers of PB29 pigment and they all vary somewhat. Plus I don't know if Klein's pigment was only ultramarine or was mixed with others as well.

 

I plan to do some mixing experiments with inks that I have to see if I can come any closer to the pigment sample I have, given the pens and paper that I normally use.

 

Marc, I think aga gao was one of the samples you took to the Pompidou. It didn't make your finalists list but I wonder if you remember your reaction when comparing it to the IKB works.

[marcomillions]

. . . Again, I think we've demonstrated over and over again here that the more times a color gets "reproduced" in some other way than the original, things tend to go terribly astray. So I said to myself, "Self, why don't you get some dry ultramarine pigment and see what this Klein fellow was driving at originally?"

 

And so I got an ounce of ultramarine pigment from an art store. Well, now I know what the presence that marcomillions talks about is. The pigment is so blue it's amazing. When you look at it in the jar it's almost radiant. Not fluorescent, but very very intense. I think a lot of this has to do with the pigment being a very fine powder that is completely matte, without any sparkle or shine to distract from the color.

 

One note to the postcard recipients: the pigment leans purple to only a very tiny amount. The postcard is much more purple than the pigment. Comparing swabs (not writing) of the ink samples that I have, I think that Iroshizuku asa gao is the closest match to the pigment I have, although it's not exactly a match. . . .

 

Marc, I think aga gao was one of the samples you took to the Pompidou. It didn't make your finalists list but I wonder if you remember your reaction when comparing it to the IKB works.

Bravo, Martin! What a good idea, going to the pigment itself. It was the fixing of the pigment in a medium that didn't obscure or deaden it in any way that Klein was patenting. Thank you for your vivid description of what PS29 looks like.

 

I don't remember precisely why I excluded Pilot's Asa-gao from the finalists. I went back to my swatches to see if I'd made a note, but alas, I hadn't. Going in, I had certainly thought Asa-gao would be one of the finalists. It is one of my favorite blue inks, and in my fine and extra-fine nibbed pens, it produces a much darker line than you'd expect from the online swatches. Just what we'd want in a IKB-equivalent.

 

Looking at my swatch, I think I probably thought that it didn't seem purple enough. It is certainly as blue as you'd want, and in that respect very close to the essence of ultramarine as you describe it. Perhaps Asa-ao will make a come-from-behind run when we start looking at how different inks compare when we look at the lines they produce and not just great blocs of swabbed color. I am very much looking forward to hearing from our other participants once they receive their cards.

 

 

Marc