Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Lapis lazuli (UK: / ˌ l æ p ɪ s ˈ l æ z (j) ʊ l i, ˈ l æ ʒ ʊ-,-ˌ l i /; US: / ˈ l æ z (j) ə l i, ˈ l æ ʒ ə-,-ˌ l i /), or lapis for short, is a deep-blue metamorphic rock used as a semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense color.
It was produced from lapis lazuli, a mineral whose major source was the mines of Sar-e-Sang in what is now northeastern Afghanistan. [1] It was transformed into a pigment by the Afghans beginning in about the 5th century, and exported by caravans to India. It was the most expensive blue used by Renaissance artists.
In biology, a pigment is any colored material of plant or animal cells. Many biological structures, such as skin , eyes , fur , and hair contain pigments (such as melanin ). Animal skin coloration often comes about through specialized cells called chromatophores , which animals such as the octopus and chameleon can control to vary the animal's ...
The earliest known blue dyes were made from plants – woad in Europe, indigo in Asia and Africa, while blue pigments were made from minerals, usually either lapis lazuli or azurite, and required more. [64] Blue glazes posed still another challenge since the early blue dyes and pigments were not thermally robust.
However, the queen of blue colorants was always the expensive lapis lazuli or its substitute azurite, ground to the finest powders. Turnsole was downgraded to a shading glaze and fell out of use in the illuminator's palette by the turn of the seventeenth century, with the easier availability of less fugitive mineral-derived blue pigments.
Close-up of the blue, lapis lazuli inlays used for the irises in the Statue of Ebih-Il, dating to the twenty-fifth century BC, discovered in the temple of Ishtar at Mari. Blue was a latecomer among colors used in art and decoration, as well as language and literature.
The Greek term for sapphire quite likely was instead used to refer to lapis lazuli. [72] During the Medieval Ages, European lapidaries came to refer to blue corundum crystal by "sapphire", a derivative of the Latin word for blue: sapphirus. [74] The sapphire is the traditional gift for a 45th wedding anniversary. [75]
The term for it in the Egyptian language is ḫsbḏ-ỉrjt (khesbedj irtiu), which referred to artificial lapis lazuli (ḫsbḏ). [5] It was used in antiquity as a blue pigment to color a variety of different media such as stone, wood, plaster, papyrus, and canvas, and in the production of numerous objects, including cylinder seals, beads ...