Blue makes no noise.
It is a timid color, without ulterior motives, forewarning or plan; it does not leap out at the eye like yellow or red do, but rather draws it in, taming it little by
little, letting it come unhurriedly, so that it sinks in and drowns in
it, unaware.
Blue is a color that invites
departure.
A color to die in, a color that
frees, the very color of the soul after it has shed body, after the blood has been spurted out, the entrails
emptied, all sorts of cavities, moving out the furniture of our thoughts once and for all.
Indefinitely, blue escapes.
To tell the truth, it is not a
color. A tonality rather, a climate, a special resonance of the air. Amassed
clarity, a hue born of emptiness added to emptiness, as changing and transparent in man's head as in the skies.
The air we breathe, the appearance of emptiness that our fingers move
across, the space we cross is nothing but this earthly
blue, invisible from being so close to us, so integral to our body, clothing our gestures and
voices. Present even in the bedroom, with all the shutters closed and lamps off,imperceptible clothing of our life.
© translated by Dawn
Cornelio, from "Une histoire de bleu", a book of J.M.Maulpoix published at Mercure de France in 1992.
A painting of Dominique Penloup about "Une histoire de bleu"
