The Origins of the English Word For the Color Blue

In a fascinating piece celebrating the 200th birthday of the National Gallery in London, journalist Sophia Smith Galer looked into the etymological origins of the word for blue in the English language and how it vastly differs from those in other languages. It turns out, the word originates with the old high German word “Blau”, which means bright.

Bue’s mystery is that it appears rarely in nature. When it does it’s not to do with pigment which is what would help us recreate it. Blue birds and butterflies are blue because of the interaction of light with the structures deep within a blue insect’s scales or a blue bird’s wing. …so it’s not surprising then that the English word for blue actually has its roots in a word that once meant bright in old high German.

As part of her piece, Galen consulted with Joanna Russell, a scientist at The National Gallery, who talked about early iterations of blue pigment, as mining it from Lapis Lazulite was extremely expensive.

There are times we know blue pigment has been more expensive than gold and it’s from a combination of the fact that it has to come from this long distance and also this complicated processing…When patrons commissioned works they also had to pay for the lapis lazulite that was used in the artist’s palette. What better way to honor the mother of God than paint her in a pigment worth more than gold?