Ecologies of Blue Paper

Dürer and Beyond

Abstract

This article examines blue paper as an ecological solution in drawing practice by investigating the questions of when and under which circumstances German artists in the early sixteenth century decided to use blue paper. Blue paper had several aesthetic, symbolic, and economic functions, often both referencing a geographic relationship to Italy and its tradition of drawing on blue paper, and also engaging in a world of play and imitation in workshop practices. For a better understanding of the early modern paper ecologies within which artists worked, it is necessary to regard paper production within a broader socio-cultural range, thus not only as an exchange between paper makers but also with consideration of other crafts as well as the impact of new technologies. From there we can reconsider our relationship to nature.