Azure pigment

Azure is the color between cyan and blue on the color wheel. It is often described as the color of the sky on a clear day.

On the RGB color wheel, "azure" (hexadecimal #0080FF) is defined as the color at 210 degrees, i.e., the hue halfway between blue and cyan. In the RGB color model, used to create all the colors on a television or computer screen, azure is created by adding a 50% of green light to a 100% of blue light.

In the X11 color system, which became a model for early web colors, azure is depicted as a pale cyan or white cyan.

Etymology and history

A polished slab of lapis lazuli, the semiprecious rock from which azure took its name

The color azure ultimately takes its name from the vivid-blue gemstone lapis lazuli, a metamorphic rock. Lapis is the Latin word for "stone" and lāzulī is the genitive form of the Medieval Latin lāzulum, which is taken from the Arabic لازورد lāzaward [laːzwrd] (ⓘ), itself from the Persian لاژورد lāžaward, which is the name of the stone in Persian and also of a place where lapis lazuli was mined.

The name of the stone came to be associated with its color. The French azur, the Italian azzurro, the Polish lazur, Romanian azur and azuriu, the Portuguese and Spanish azul, Hungarian azúr, and the Catalan atzur, all come from the name and color of lapis lazuli. The dropping of the initial l in Romance languages may be a case of the linguistic phenomenon known as rebracketing, i.e. Romance speakers may have perceived the sound as the initial phoneme of the definitive article in their respective language.

The word was adopted into English from the French, and the first recorded use of it as a color name in English was in 1374 in Geoffrey Chaucer's work Troilus and Criseyde, where he refers to "a broche, gold and asure" (a brooch, gold and azure).

Some languages, such as Italian, generally consider azure to be a basic colour, separate and distinct from blue. Some sources even go to the point of defining blue as a darker shade of azure.

Azure also describes the color of the mineral azurite, both in its natural form and as a pigment in various paint formulations. In order to preserve its deep color, azurite was ground coarsely. Fine-ground azurite produces a lighter, washed-out color. Traditionally, the pigment was considered unstable in oil paints, and was sometimes isolated from other colors and not mixed.

The use of the term spread through the practice of heraldry, where "azure" represents a blue color in the system of tinctures. In engravings, it is represented as a region of parallel horizontal lines, or by the abbreviation az. or b. In practice, azure has been represented by any number of shades of blue. In later heraldic practice a lighter blue, called bleu celeste ("sky blue"), is sometimes specified.

Distinction among indigo, azure, and cyan

According to the logic of the RGB color wheel, indigo colors are those colors with hue codes between 255 and 225 (degrees), azure colors are those colors with hue codes between 195 and 225, and cyan colors are those colors with hue codes between 165 and 195. Another way of describing it could be that cyan is a mixture of blue and green light, azure is a mixture of blue and cyan light, and indigo is a mixture of blue and violet light.

All of the colors shown in the section shades of azure are referenced as having a hue between 195 and 225 degrees, with the exception of the very pale X11 web color azure – RGB (240, 255, 255) – which, with a hue of 180 degrees, is a tone of cyan, but follows the artistic meaning of azure as sky blue.

In nature

European roller

Insects

  • Azure bluet (Enallagma aspersum), damselfly found in North America
  • Azure damselfly (Coenagrion puella), damselfly found in Europe
  • Azure hawker (Aeshna caerulea), dragonfly in the family Aeshnidae

Birds

Plants

In culture

Shades of azure, tekhelet, and blue are seen in this photo, depicting the flag of Israel on the background of the sea at Rishon LeZion beach.

Astronomy

The true color of the exoplanet HD 189733b determined by astronomers is azure blue.

See also

Notes