The Search for the PERFECT BLUE ; It Was Already the Colour of Heaven, of Peace, of Melancholy. but the Artist Yves Klein Yearned for a Blue That Was 'Absolute' " and 50 Years Ago He Found It, a Dazzling Ultramarine That Changed Art Forever. Charles Darwent Meets the Mixer Who Sourced Klein's Magic Ingredients; and, Overleaf, Phil Johnson Gets Kind of Blue and Metaphysical, from Kandinsky to Jarman

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Though it was half-a-century ago, it's as clear to Edouard Adam as day. 'Here, at that time, there were tiroirs full of different pigments,' says M. Adam, waving to a patch of wall and miming a cabinet with his hands. 'I took one of them out like this and, like this, I said 'Follow me'.' I pad after him, the old man carrying his spectral drawer, through to the storeroom of a Paris shop. 'There was no ceiling here then,' he says. 'Just daylight through a glass roof, north light " Jrme, give me some bleu de Prusse, please " and I said to him: 'You have only two choices. It's either this" " Adam throws the Prussian Blue onto a sheet of white paper " "or this'.' He empties the …