I paint with blue fairly often. I understand that it might be the hardest to create artificially, but it is done regularly in the modern world.
Could the fascination be due to psychological reasons, like blue light being linked to sleep difficulties? This seems to be the current world we live in, where blue light filters exist to help prevent sleep disorders. Perhaps because our skies are increasingly gray with pollution, so blue gives us hope of a future where our air is clean and without smog?
I might be missing the entire point of the article, but I feel that if I am, my fellow HNers are with me (even if they don't believe the same thing).