Love Letters in Crayon: Blue-Violet
One of the newest colors illustrates one of our oldest stories.
Every Friday afternoon, “64 to Infinity: Love Letters in Crayon” will illustrate the long, strange story of humankind in one of the 64 colors that make up this world-famous primary palette. After traveling back through time to witness the debut of Blue Green on our singular paradise planet, we return to the current era to explore the modern riches of our homeworld with a compelling combination-color crayon: Blue Violet.
Blue Violet might be most famous as ⅓ of the opening line in just about every English-speaking child’s first attempt at poetry, but the unique visual signature of this particular shade takes it far beyond our primary schools of thought.
Introduced by Big Crayon in the 1930s (and also known as Violet Blue in some releases), this color can present surprisingly practical appeal for what can appear at first glance to be a rather ostentatious addition to The 64.
Blue Violet is the approximate color of the laser that powers the Blu-Ray digital disc format, offering added density of storage to deliver greater image quality, longer run times, and added content as compared to conventional DVDs (remember DVDs?).
Perfected near the turn of the century by Nakamura Shuji, the Blue Violet laser earned the electronic engineer the Nobel Prize in Physics.
In nature, Blue Violet can be most spectacularly seen in the shimmer of a Tanzanite stone.
Named for the East African territory that is home to the only place on The Planet where it has been mined, this rare gem was revealed to human knowledge in 1967 by one “Mad” Manuel D’Souza, a tailor from India who dedicated his life to collecting Gold, gems, and other unique embellishments for his handmade garments from all around the globe, typically traveling on foot and unarmed.
While performing freelance sartorial services to fund his travels, he was drawn to a remote area near the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro where, as a seeming reward for his lifelong æsthetic enthusiasm, he happened upon a strange stone sitting by the side of the road; a chance encounter that was declared one of the most significant gemological events in centuries.
For these reasons, Blue Violet can be viewed as the newest hue in the palette of human endeavour, and now you see why I am obsessed with this color.
It’s been quite the showcase for shades of Blue over this past month, eh? Lovers of other colors, take heart…next week’s entry into this alphabetized anthology of æsthetics goes in a decidedly different direction. Join us next Friday for an ode to the crayon color that represents an indispensable building block to the world of today: Brick Red!
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