Author(s): Carol Mavor

General Art

The sea, the sky, the veins of the hands, the earth itself when photographed from space; blue sometimes seems to overwhelm all the other shades of our world in its all-encompassing presence. Blue Mythologies: Reflections on a Colour presents a series of explorations of the colour blue, echoing Roland Barthes' 'Mythologies' essays. The blues of Blue Mythologies include science, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Slavery, gender, sex, ornithology, the literary past, and contemporary film. The engaging and elegiac readings are at once sociological, literary, historical and visual, taking the reader from the blue of a new-born baby's eyes to the films of Jarman and Kieslowski. Blue as the colour of death, as Vishnu's skin, the colour of optimism, heaven, asphyxiation, depression, the blues, innocence, even blue cheese: in each example Mavor unpicks meaning both above and below the surface of culture and makes us question our relationship with blue. Richly illustrated, Blue Mythologies is a fresh and contemplative navigation of the meanings and mythologies surrounding this most familiar and paradoxical of colours.