Description
- Ultramarine is the standard warm blue, a brilliant blue pigment that has the most purple and least green in its undertone.
- It has a moderate to high tinting strength and a beautiful transparency.
- Synthetic Ultramarine is not as vivid a blue as natural Ultramarine.
- Ultramarine dries slowly in oil and tends to produce clean, though granular, washes in watercolor.
- French Ultramarine mixes well with Alizarin colors in oil and watercolor form to create a range of purples and violets.
- It can dull when mixed with white in acrylic form, but mixes well with other colors. The shade varies based on manufacturer.
- Considered a great color for glazes, it is not suitable for frescoing.
- The name for this pigment comes from the Middle Latin ultra, meaning beyond, and mare, meaning sea, because it was imported from Asia to Europe by sea.
- It is a prominent component of lapis lazuli and was used on Asian temples starting in the 6th century.
- It was one of the most expensive pigments in 16th century Europe, worth twice its weight in gold, and so was used sparingly and when commissions were larger.
- Ultramarine is currently imitated by a process invented in France in 1826 by Jean Baptiste Guimet, making blue affordable to artists and extending the range of colors on their palettes.