The Earth is blue! This was the exclamation of the first man to see our planet from space, the Russian Yuri Gagarin. He could have said many other things. Some thing like the Earth is round... Or that our planet looks like a small ball lost in the infinite… But no. Gagarin, under the emotion of that moment, preferred to say that the "Earth is blue."

His exclamation shows the fascination color exerts on the mankind. Color stirs our emotions, gives new dimension to objects, modifies space and alters shapes. The blue Gagarin saw, we know, is the result of solar light refraction, a natural phenomenon. However, much of the blue – and also of all the other colors we see in our daily life – is the result of the development of Chemistry.

It was through Chemistry that the human culture was able to reproduce the magnificent hues and colors reflected by nature, besides creating new and infinite nuances. The basic colors of the rainbow inspired the birth of a technology, which gave still more colors to the blue planet. And the color became accessible to all. How? Easy. Before developing, in the XIX century, the synthesis processes for the production of dyes and pigments, we used ores, such as iron and manganese oxides, or vegetal extracts to give colors to articles and objects, which limited considerably the production and the creativity of the artists.

Let us agree that, without Chemistry, geniuses would find it a lot more difficult to get immersed into the day-to-day life and discover colors and shapes which are around us, but are not perceived by our senses. We are talking about geniuses such as Rembrandt, Picasso, Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Monet, Portinari, Di Cavalcanti, Dali, Manabu Mabe, among many others. This is the reason we have to be "awakened" by the artist.

Chemistry makes steady company to artists from all the world and, therefore, to the poetry that lives around us. That is the case of turpentine. No, it is not a famous painting and much less a naive painter that is starting to illumine the art horizons. Turpentine is a chemical substance, a component of the solvents used by painters of the whole world, amateurs and professionals alike, to dissolve paints and to clean brushes. Of course, independently of this fact, no one is going to go into a museum or art gallery to discuss the presence of Chemistry in the paintings. The idea is to let the soul absorb the beauty seized by the artist. But it is always good to remember that without the dyes and pigments developed by Chemistry the world would be much less colorful.

And it is not only in paintings that Chemistry has its contribution. There are thousands of chemical dyes and pigments, some with very difficult names to pronounce, that are used in other "arts", like the pentamethyltriamine triphenylcarbinol chloride, dye used on leather, wood, lacquer and to make carbon paper. Or the tetrabromofluorescein, used to give color to liquids in general. The complexity of chemical names, however, is another question. It is much more poetic and simple to use a popular name. After all, the exclamation of Gagarin would have much less impact if he just had said: "the Earth has the hue of the 1-(2-hydroxyethylamine) 4-methylaminoanthraquinone"

Blue is much better.

Text: Luiz Carlos de Medeiros (Mtb 12.293) English version by Joe Vianna (translat@mvpisp.com)