Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0014947, Wed, 21 Feb 2007 17:24:32 -0800

Subject
The sky is blue - - or not?
Date
Body

A thing is either blue, or it isn't. It can't be "falsely" blue.


Dear Charles,

Is the sky itself, then "truly" blue? Its color, as I understand it, is the
result of reflection, and so "falsely" blue describes not only the window
reflecting the sky, but the sky itself. Assuredly the sky has not pigment -
- so is it blue? In butterfly wings the blue color is produced by the angle
at which the scales lay.*

Besides the intended meaning of "false azure" as used in the poem is
certainly clear, or should be.

Carolyn

* "New research shows that the wings of the morpho rhetenor butterfly
reflect its brilliant blue colors not from pigment but from extremely small
scaffolding within the scales of the butterfly¹s wings."





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