Blue Mythologies: Reflections on a Colour

About this book

The sea the sky the veins of your hands the earth when photographed from spaceblue sometimes seems to overwhelm all the other shades of our world in its all-encompassing presence. The blues of Blue Mythologies include those present in the worlds religions eggs science slavery gender sex art the literary past and contemporary film. Carol Mavors engaging and elegiac readings in this beautifully illustrated book take the reader from the blue of a newborn babys eyes to Giottos frescoes at Padua and from the films of Derek Jarman and Krzysztof Kislowski to the islands of Venice and Aran. In each example Mavor unpicks meaning both above and below the surface of culture. In an echo of Roland Barthess essays in Mythologies blue is unleashed as our most familiar and most paradoxical color. At once historical sociological literary and visual Blue Mythologies gives us a fresh and contemplative look into the traditions tales and connotations of those somethings blue.