Blue
The colour of sky and depth, of distance and spirit.
Blue: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
Blue is the colour of the air and the heavens, of distance and depth, and so of spirit; Jung read the colours of his patients’ paintings, blue among them, as carrying the qualities of the elements and the functions they drew on. It is the colour of the Virgin’s mantle, and Kandinsky, in 1911, called it the typically heavenly colour, drawing one toward the infinite.
Blue: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
The Virgin’s mantle and lapis lazuli, the blue of the sky and the far hills, the Romantics’ blue flower, Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1911).
From the Sources
Addressing the heaven before sunrise, Zarathustra says his blessing is to stand above everything as its own heaven, its round roof and azure bell.
“This, however, is my blessing: to stand above everything as its own heaven, its round roof, its azure bell and eternal security”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, Third Part, XLVIII, 'Before Sunrise'. Translated by Thomas Common (Project Gutenberg eBook #1998). The text, read in part
Goethe writes that as the sky and distant mountains look blue, a blue surface seems to retire from us, and that we love to contemplate blue because it draws us after it.
“As the upper sky and distant mountains appear blue, so a blue surface seems to retire from us. 781. But as we readily follow an agreeable object that flies from us, so we love to contemplate blue, not because it advances to us, but because it draws us after it.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethe's Theory of Colours, Part VI, paragraphs 780-781 ('Blue'). Translated from the German, with notes by Charles Lock Eastlake, R.A., F.R.S.; London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1840 (Project Gutenberg eBook #50572). The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- “A Study in the Process of Individuation,” CW 9i
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among The Colours of the Work
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“Blue.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/blue.
Nearby in the alphabet: Black: The blackening at the start of the work. Blood: Life itself, given and shed. The Boat: The vessel that carries across the waters. The Bones: What remains, and what rises again.