Blue colour traditions in Polish wooden architecture – valuable cultural heritage and a source of inspiration / Justyna Tarajko-Kowalska // W: Colour and Colorimetry. Multidisciplinary Contributions ... więcej

Blue colour traditions in Polish wooden architecture – valuable cultural heritage and a source of inspiration / Justyna Tarajko-Kowalska // W: Colour and Colorimetry. Multidisciplinary Contributions : proceedings of the 13th Conferenza del Colore, Napoli, Italia, September 04th-05th, 2017. Vol. XIII B [Dokument elektroniczny] / ed. by Veronica Marchiafava, Francesca Valan ; Gruppo Del Colore - Associazione Italiana Colore. – Milano : Gruppo Del Colore - Associazione Italiana Colore, 2017. – S. 37-46 : il. kolor. – Tryb dostępu: http://www.gruppodelcolore.it/Docs/ColourAndColorimetry_MultidisciplinaryContribution13B_pro.pdf. – Bibliogr. 18 poz., Abstr. – ISBN 978-88-99513-06-1

In the paper author discuss use of the blue colour in the traditional Polish wooden architecture, considering its symbolic, functional and decorative aspects. The main objective of the article is to present ... więcej

In the paper author discuss use of the blue colour in the traditional Polish wooden architecture, considering its symbolic, functional and decorative aspects. The main objective of the article is to present rich blue colour tradition, prevalent in rural homesteads façades colorization, where this hue was commonly used since the second half of the 19th century, especially in south Poland regions. It is also important to define and specify those factors, which influenced such popularity of the blue colour in wooden architecture as e.g. availability of the wide range of blue pigments. Author describes different types of blue coloured walls e.g. “siwy” (pale blue), “myty” (washed) and “w kolorowe pasy” (colourfully striped). Apart from its aesthetical value, blue colour had also usable functions (insect repelling) and symbolical ones, just like tokens and magic symbols, involving the protection of inhabitants from evil. Blue colour was – and still is - also very popular for painting facades of Orthodox churches in the north-east Poland, especially in the Podlasie region. This tradition is derived mostly from symbolical connotations in Catholic religion between blue hue and Virgin Mary and Archangel Michael, as well as the Heaven itself. The analysis of the blue colour use in the traditional Polish rural architecture has been conducted on the basis of the available archive materials from the National Institute for Folk Art Research, collected at the Ethnographic Museum of Krakow, documenting the colours of traditional rural facilities in different regions of Poland, illustrations and descriptions found in literature, works of landscape painters of the 19th century and author’s own examinations of the relics of traditional architecture collected in heritage parks as well as preserved in situ. Also pigments used to obtain diverse azure tones of paints - from cyan to navy blue, as natural minerals: vivianite and azurite, copper compounds or synthetic ultramarine called “farbka” (paint) are described. Such accessibility of the diverse sources of the blue dye was one of the most important reasons for the popularity of blue in the traditional Polish architecture. So widespread use of blue in common housing is unique in the world, where this hue was usually considered "expensive" and thus it was used to dye the external walls extremely rare. There is no doubt, that this blue colour tradition in regional wooden architecture should be treated not only as interesting feature of far past, but as an element of cultural heritage and a source of inspiration for contemporary architecture of Polish countryside.