lapis-lazuli

Klein was a provocateur, and I’m no art historian, so don’t let me tell you what he actually meant by his all-blue paintings. But one thing he could have meant was a callback to all the medieval merchants and monks and miners; everyone who died to get a few drops of ultramarine back to Europe so the Virgin Mary’s robes could be perfectly celestially blue. “Look!” say Klein’s paintings. “Now we’re so rich, so blessed, that I can paint an entire canvas with the perfect blue of the heavens. I can use more blue than the total yearly output of medieval Europe, just so a couple of passers-by can frown and secretly wish that paintings still looked like stuff.

— Scott Alexander, The Colors of Her Coat