“In blue’s lapis-lazuli fashion, /
A natural pigment’s duration; /
Now ultramarine /
As synthetic, too, seen— /
From beyond-the-sea inspiration.”
The 9 April 2026 Bluesky limerick emphasized another theme I often teach in Chemistry in Art: the shift from natural to synthetic pigments. In revisiting the verse, I was interested to note some broader links to works of literature, so this post will run a bit long.
“In blue’s lapis-lazuli fashion, /
A natural pigment’s duration…”
A paint relies on a mixture of two crucial chemical compounds to work. It needs a pigment to give the paint its color and a binder to allow the pigment to stick to a surface. Different colors of pigments were historically available from a variety of sources; Pigments Through the Ages is one of many excellent websites that provides much more information on this topic.
The earliest sources of blue pigment were expensive. Most famously, lapis lazuli was mined in its original form (composed of the mineral lazurite and others) at great cost in Afghanistan, then shipped elsewhere at high cost, as well. It was highly sought after. Artists often relied on patrons who wanted a blue color used in a painting to provide the pigment; I wrote earlier this year about one case study that has been extensively studied by experts.
The etymology of lapis lazuli comes from both Latin (where “lapis” was the word for “stone”) and Persian (where “lazuli” links ultimately to the word for “blue,” as can be seen in the overlap with the modern word “azure”), reflecting to an extent this long, complex path.
One of my more useful heuristics, as a novice interested in art history, is “look for what’s blue”: I have found that seeking out the use of the color blue in a historical painting often helps me to identify what an artist likely intended to emphasize most, given the relative rarity and expense of the underlying natural pigments.
“Now ultramarine /
As synthetic, too, seen— /
From beyond-the-sea inspiration.”
Evie Hatch’s recent book Pigment Stories: The History of Artists’ Colour is a beautiful volume that provides an overview of many pigments and their use in actual works of art. The essay focusing on Ultramarine Blue notes lapis lazuli as the natural source for this color, then tells the story of the synthetic pathway to the same color.
Because French chemist Jean Baptiste Guimet was the first person to find a route to the same chemical compound in the lab (in 1828), the synthetic pigment is sometimes known as French Ultramarine Blue. This synthetic route allowed the use of blue in subsequent paintings much more easily and inexpensively. (Such a step between natural and synthetic colorants was also seen with purple.)
I learned the word “ultramarine” many years ago in my childhood, simply interpreting it as the shade of a specific blue crayon (from Crayola or similar). I appreciated finally taking a close look via the April poem to realize the evocative history inherent in its name: “beyond the sea,” from Latin’s ultramarinus, as the natural pigment had to cross the waters to be used widely in European art.
***
Like many others, I saw and greatly enjoyed the 2026 film version of The Odyssey this summer. Doing so reminded me of some additional links that I’ll explore with some additional words here.
In Homer’s original poem of The Odyssey, the seas are consistently characterized as “wine-dark,” a description which has fascinated scholars across disciplines for a long time. (Why wouldn’t the poet simply use the word for blue?) By the time I became interested in the chemistry and art overlap in recent years, the broad consensus seemed to be one of perception: that the discernment of and names for different colors emerged over time. Since red was recognized and described earlier than blue was, a word for red was available much earlier than a word for blue, across multiple societies and languages.
I was fascinated to learn that as recently as a few decades ago, in exploring the same question, scientists and artists had proposed additional explanations, as this New York Times article had reported in 1983. (The perception argument is there, but only as one in a long list.) For instance, perhaps the wine contained a compound that could act as an indicator, and perhaps the alkalinity of the water used to prepare the wine was then enough to turn it a different, bluish color at that time. Maybe the poet was referencing the seas’ appearances specifically at sunset, or maybe there was an odd meteorological effect observed at the time. It was also interesting to learn that “wine-dark” in Greek serves some useful syllabic roles for the dactylic hexameter employed in the original poem. It seems fitting that such a central work of literature has likewise inspired investigations and hypotheses across academic disciplines, throughout history.
Finally, at the risk of some very slight spoilers, I had been reminded in watching the 2026 film also of Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses,” long one of my favorites. The echoes between “beyond the sunset” and “beyond the sea” are what brought me to this addendum. (So too with the post title: Ulysses contemplates how he has “become a name,” long after his famous adventures, in the 1842 poem. I appreciated the chance to look intentionally at the names leading to Ultramarine Blue this year, to better understand the hue’s actual provenance.)
