Yves Klein, Untitled Blue Monochrome, (IKB 67), 1959 Dry pigment and synthetic resin on gauze mounted on panel

"It is true that at first we do not see anything. Not a drawing. Neither a point nor a line. Only blue, a blue so intense and so deep that it is reflected in the eye as the sky over the sea. For a few minutes, we are still looking for a clue. Something. At least a signature. But no, we only see blue. Pure colour. Lively and powerful colour. It vibrates and radiates like a sun. It has no limit. Blue of water, blue of the air or blue of the wind, it represents nothing concrete and yet it lives in the depths of us.
This colour is the International Klein Blue. It does not reveal anything at first glance. In front of it, we begin to imagine everything we would like to see. As if all of a sudden we did not need any more pictures. We could then draw all our dreams. We could swim in the open ocean or fly into space, fly higher than birds, even further than Sputnik. We could jump here in the big void, go around the Earth and colour the whole world. Here, there are no barriers, no walls, no gravity. It is the empire of sensibility, a land of wonders, a world before words that has limits only those of the imagination. In this monochrome adventure, it is our mind that sees with our eyes. You must not look, you must feel, breathe and taste. Escape in a motionless journey. Get rid of what we know to better accommodate what we dream. Imagine that beauty is there, invisible, ready to be discovered. And for that, no one needs to be an artist, scholar or simple madman. No, for that you just have to believe it."

Charlotte Ménard, excerpt from the book A Kids' book of wonders, éditions Artichaut, Paris - Udine, 2018