About Blue

Within the study of the senses, sight carries the connotation of being the sense of remoteness and distance. Through vision, we can gain a spatial perspective, and unlike the other senses, we do not need to be close to the sensation in order to perceive it.

The color blue is also considered the color of distance.

For many years I have been moved by the blue at the farthest edge of what can be seen, that color of horizons, of distant mountain ranges, of anything situated in the remoteness. The color of that distance is the color of an emotion, the color of solitude and desire, the color of the there seen from the here, the color of where you are not. And the color of where you will never be. For blue is not in that point on the horizon from which you are separated by however many miles, but in the atmosphere of the distance between you and the mountains. “Longing,” says the poet Robert Hass, “because desire is full of endless distances.”

— Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, 2005.