Colour names often developed individually in natural languages, typically beginning with black and white (or dark and light), and then adding red, and only much later – usually as the last main category of colour accepted in a language – adding the colour blue, probably when blue pigments could be manufactured reliably in the culture using that language. Linguistic research indicates that languages do not begin by having a word for the colour blue. (For more on this subject, see Distinguishing blue from green in language) In Japanese, the word for blue (青 ao) is often used for colours that English speakers would refer to as green, such as the colour of a traffic signal meaning "go". For example, in Vietnamese, the colour of both tree leaves and the sky is xanh. Several languages, including Japanese, and Lakota Sioux, use the same word to describe blue and green. In Russian, Spanish and some other languages, there is no single word for blue, but rather different words for light blue (голубой, goluboj Celeste) and dark blue (синий, sinij Azul). In heraldry, the word azure is used for blue. The modern English word blue comes from Middle English bleu or blewe, from the Old French bleu, a word of Germanic origin, related to the Old High German word blao (meaning shimmering, lustrous). Prussian blue, the colour of the uniforms of the army of Prussia, was invented in about 1706Įtymology and linguistic differences
#Secret of the wings coloring sheets windows
In the Middle Ages, European artists used it in the windows of cathedrals. In the eighth century Chinese artists used cobalt blue to colour fine blue and white porcelain. The semi-precious stone lapis lazuli was used in ancient Egypt for jewellery and ornament and later, in the Renaissance, to make the pigment ultramarine, the most expensive of all pigments. Distant objects appear more blue because of another optical effect called aerial perspective.īlue has been an important colour in art and decoration since ancient times. An optical effect called Tyndall effect explains blue eyes. The clear daytime sky and the deep sea appear blue because of an optical effect known as Rayleigh scattering. Most blues contain a slight mixture of other colours azure contains some green, while ultramarine contains some violet. The eye perceives blue when observing light with a dominant wavelength between approximately 450 and 495 nanometres.
It lies between purple and green on the spectrum of visible light. Blue is one of the three primary colours of pigments in painting, drawing (art) and traditional colour theory, as well as in the RGB colour model.