I’ve got the Best Kind of Blues

I’ve got the Best Kind of Blues

Show me an artist who doesn’t love blue,
I’ll show you an artist who doesn’t paint true.
Blue as the heavens, blue as the sea,
Blue as the cornflowers that blow on the lea.

Blue as the mantle of Mary the Mild,
Blue as the eyes of a newborn child.
Sapphires and Aquamarines are blue,
Lapis lazuli, opals too.

Blue as a pigment is some other thing,
Awkward, intransigent, hard to make sing.
Aniline Blue—don’t lick the brush,
Ultramarine-expensive but lush.

Cobalt can make you allergy-prone,
Indigo’s fugitive-that’s well known;
Then there’s Pthalocyanine Blue—
The name suggests what it can do.

Prussian Blue is much the same—
Emitting cyanide is its game.
So Hail! The Uni of Oregon State,
And the beautiful Blue they’ve helped to create.

Mixed Yttrium, Indium and Manganese,
And heated it to Two thousand degrees.
And lo! Accidental, and spanking new,
A colour they named as YInMn Blue.

Not toxic, unfading, for artists it’s great—
My thanks to the Chemists at Oregon State