The Hindu : New Delhi News : "The blue rose" comes calling

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Thursday, Nov 30, 2006
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New Delhi

New Delhi

"The blue rose" comes calling

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

NEW DELHI: Being one of the oldest centres for indigo production in the world, India shares a special relationship with this natural dye.

In fact, the very name indigo is etymologically linked with the name India that through a series of changes finally means indigo.

And to pay a tribute to this rich tradition, Apparao Galleries is organising an exhibition of creative vignettes in indigo natural colours here from this Friday. In this exhibition, artists have used the real indigo dye either on a fabric or as a colour to paint with.

Titled "The Blue Rose'', the exhibition will run up to December 15.

Using the rich colour of the natural pigment, the participating artists will give free reign to their imagination and creativity in this show.

The exhibition apart from being an attempt to highlight the tradition of indigo is also an effort to revive the tradition of using natural indigo which in the wake of chemical substitutes has been nearly wiped out.

The natural colour indigo has a history that is as old as civilisation itself and its presence dates back to the age of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations.

One of the first colours to be used in textile painting and printing, the dye has a distinctive unusual tint that has been used to colour a variety of substances ranging from cloth to food.

Indigo was a highly sought after substance in the medieval world, and it was only after Vasco da Gama's discovery of a sea route to India that the supply of indigo in Europe marginally met the demand for it.

Observing the popularity of indigo, finally in the 1800s synthetic pigments were invented to meet the requirement for natural indigo, which was relatively scarce since it was extracted from plants native to the tropics.

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