Page 23 - Dainfern Precinct Living Issue 6_2023

Travel
Nature

sea is described as ‘wine-dark’.
It seems that about 6 000 years ago, we
began to develop blue pigment for the
first time. It came from lapis lazuli, a rare,
deep blue metamorphic stone mined
in Afghanistan and from which semi-
precious jewellery was made.

The Egyptians were greatly attracted to
its brilliance and would grind it down
to produce a pigment which they called
blue. As far as it is known this was the
first time that a word meaning blue
appeared in any language .
1
The use of blue dyes slowly spread
across the Middle East and to Rome Plumbago – Blue is nature’s rarest colour. Half-collared Kingfisher
but only the ultra-wealthy could afford
them. Blue was to remain virtually
unknown in western Europe for many
centuries. Then, at the end of the
Middle Ages, lapis reached deeper
into the Continent and produced
the ultramarine of the Renaissance
painters. It was otherwise reserved for
fabrics worn by royalty.

Was it because blue is so rare in nature
that nobody saw it until recent times
as being remarkable? What about the
sky? Surely that was blue? There’s a
theory that we did not see it as blue
until we recognised blue pigment. Blue has become
Apparently, children perceive the sky as the world’s most
being colourless until it is pointed out popular colour
to them as being blue.

1.There are today, thanks to chemistry,
scores of different blues and thousands of
words - encompassing hundreds of languages
and dialects - to describe them. But none, I
imagine, more colourful than those in Zulu
which include: luhlaza okwesibhakabhaka
for blue and okuluhlaza okwesibhakabha
Okumnyama for navy blue.

DPL issue 6 2023 23
16 DPL issue 4 2023 DPL issue 2 2023 7