Popularity in Blue
Résumé
The aim of this chapter is to track down some of the variations of blue from the Romantic to the Victorian age and beyond. It does so first by dwelling on the ambivalence of the color, as exploited by Ruskin in a self-portrait that manages to convey contradictory feelings, both of alienation and of attraction. It then returns to the origins of Keats's romantic infatuation with splendid dyes in general, and with blue in particular. This was later to serve as a blueprint for Robert Browning's graphic recreation of the poet, on the basis of an imaginary evocation of the legendary murex, in a poem that stigmatizes the quasi industrial exploitation of blue at the hands of Keats's venal Victorian epigones. From there follows an investigation into the tantalizing proximity of dyeing and dying. Last but not least, a detour via the enduring popularity of Reckitt's Blue, a quintessentially Victorian brand of washing powder sheds light on the nostalgia attached to a color that is always on the brink of disappearing.
Domaines
Littératures
Loading...