BERLINER BLAU – A FORGOTTEN SENSATION
Posted in Art, research, Uncategorized on September 9th, 2026Words by Nancy Li
“How can such dark color come from only light colours?”
This question stays with me. It leads to somewhere deeper, in regardless of it is of chemical nature or philosophical one.
I wouldn’t necessarily associate Berlin with blue, but the history has proven me wrong. When Kirsten mentioned this term at our first meeting casually, light flooded out of my eyes. It is simply romantic to name a color after a city or country. Thinking of China red along with the easiest associations with the Forbidden City and the red envelop that is supposed to bring you fortune both metaphorically and realistically. However, long before the romanticist movement came along, a “new” shade of blue was already accidentally created by H. Joh. Jacob Diesbach (1670 – 1748) and Pietist Johann Conrad Dippel (1673 – 1734) in Berlin in 1706. Since then, world was not the same. From art to medicine, from food to alchemy, the influence of Berlin blue has gone wider than our perception of colors and trades. Before we acknowledged this significant experiment later being repeated countless times, the trademark of Berlin Blue (also called Prussian blue) has long been part of who we are as much as the city ever is.
In 2021, the artist Kirsten Stoll with her sculpture and ceramics background and Prof. Dr. Britta Lange from Humboldt University of Berlin chose a conventional laboratory setting and tried to reenact this ancient experiment with curiosity and contemporary perspective. Instead of using the test tube as old-school chemist did, they used capillary paper to register the ever-changing patterns of this unique, bright, deep blue, born from the yellow-orange tone given by iron sulphate and the transparent tint from blood salt. Many questions started to emerge in time of shades changing, thoughts forming, research in progress. Is chemistry a (natural) art? Where is place of originality in the imitation of process? Over the past three hundred years, Berlin Blue has been copied, renamed, put into use by countless industries, benefiting thousands and millions of people, then forgotten at some point, at least the origin of it. Gazing into the blue bacteria-like molecules changing faces from one page to another, it is not so hard to have the urge to remember part of the history that has shaped how we see blue today. Britta and Kirsten, devoting years of research and work to a singular passion, they simply observe and let the blue take their breathe away. New phenomena is constantly evolving, shifting, making its own voices being heard and hopefully understood by many others, leading us to the ever dazzling galaxy of unknown. Up until today, those liquids are still somewhere undergoing a reaction which none of us know where it will take us.
At the end of our meeting, knowing I am Chinese. Kirsten shared with me her enthusiasm about Chinese tea and ceramic making which she used as an experimental practice before applying paint on her larger-scaled sculptures. By transforming minute waste into meaningful objects with mindfulness and reflection, it unveils a way of thinking I find particularly refreshing in a landfill stormed with consumer-oriented arts and images numbing our senses today. It comes from an yearning for depth, and a sensation that is bound to survive hundred years of unpredictability and human flaws.
Aufsaugen – verbreiten – vermischen – übertragen. Berliner Blau und das Kapillarische (Absorb – spread – mix – transfer. Berlin Blue and capillarity) by Dr. Britta Lange and Kirsten Stoll, written in German, translated to English by Matthew Gyngell
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