Originally posted in The Paris Review.
Michelangelo couldn’t afford ultramarine. His painting The Entombment, the story goes, was left unfinished as the result of his failure to procure the prized pigment. Rafael reserved ultramarine for his final coat, preferring for his base layers a common azurite; Vermeer was less parsimonious in his application and proceeded to mire his family in debt. Ultramarine: the quality of the shade is embodied in its name. This is the superlative blue, the end-all blue, the blue to which all other hues quietly aspire. The name means “beyond the sea”—a dreamy ode to its distant origins, as romantic as it is imprecise.
Derived from the lapis lazuli stone, the pigment was considered more precious than gold. For centuries, the lone source of ultramarine was an arid strip of mountains in northern Afghanistan. The process of extraction involved grinding the stone into a fine powder, infusing the deposits with melted wax, oils, and pine resin, and then kneading…
via A Brief History of Ultramarine—The World’s Costliest Color.
Very interesting! Thank you. I love Ultramarine.
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Pleasure!
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Reblogged this on Nothing Gilded, Nothing Gained–Writing Historical Fiction at Middlemay Farm.
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Wow, isn’t that interesting. Great read on one of my favorite colors.
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So glad you enjoyed it, Mary.
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That is so cool.
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Thanks, Gigi.
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Fascinating information. And a beautiful colour.
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Thank you, Olga.
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My tastes have always run to the expensive…not, that I could have it…but, color… it doesn’t seem right that it is not within our reach…
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It’s so unfair, isn’t it!
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Thinking about you in Greece at the moment…
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Bless you. We’re okay but it’s heartbreaking to see the despair all around.
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We hope ex-pats are protected as well as the Greek nationals who are innocent of corruption and just trying to work for their families.
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We are and we’ve chosen not to get a Greek bank account. The most corrupt (just like the UK) have always been the politicians and the corporate businessmen. Whenever we talk to our friends, they beg us to correct the impression given in the European press or certainly the British press that they’re a nation of feckless, corrupt tax-avoiders. The bulk of the population is as sound as you or I.
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As I suspected….
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That’s so interesting. I never knew any of this. I cannot imagine what the cost of bringing it back from Afghanistan must have been.
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Quite!
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I had no idea! But this is an exquisite colour and I can see why the original article says it should be taken seriously and not applied “crudely”.
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It is the most glorious colour but I find I don’t use any kind of blue often enough. Looking at ultramarine, I have to make changes!
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Reblogged this on Hello, KB CAMPUSSTAR.
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Reblogged this on ' Ace Friends News '.
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