The Most Popular Blue in History (Was Ignored By Egypt) [7:01]

Transcript
0:00 · The Mineral That Painted The World Blue
0:00 · It's no secret that humans love to make art.
0:02 · But to make good art, you need good supplies.
0:05 · A sculptor needs clay,
0:07 · a musician needs an instrument,
0:08 · and a painter needs paints.
0:10 · For as long as we've been painting the town
0:12 · red, or green, or aquamarine,
0:15 · we've needed to find the best pigments for the job.
0:17 · Which is where this striking mineral
0:20 · called azurite comes in.
0:22 · For thousands of years, people all over the world
0:24 · have used this pretty blue rock
0:26 · to make pretty blue art.
0:28 · But the biggest mystery surrounding azurite
0:30 · has been why one group in particular…
0:32 · didn't.
0:34 · [intro]
0:36 · Azurite is a naturally occurring
0:38 · copper carbonate mineral
0:40 · that tends to form near
0:41 · the top of copper ore deposits,
0:43 · when the metal-rich rock
0:45 · becomes weathered and oxidized.
0:47 · If you've ever seen a copper penny in your home
0:49 · turn a kind of bluish-green
0:50 · when it's exposed to the elements for too long,
0:52 · it's basically that.
0:54 · Azurite is named for azure,
0:56 · which just means blue in a bunch of languages.
0:58 · And when it's crushed,
0:59 · it turns into a blue powder
1:01 · that people quickly realized
1:02 · can be used as a pigment.
1:04 · It's even been called
1:05 · the most important blue pigment
1:07 · in medieval European art.
1:08 · If you know anything about art from this period,
1:11 · you might think of the blues
1:12 · as coming from ultramarine, not azurite.
1:15 · Ultramarine is made from the mineral lapis lazuli,
1:18 · and it has also been a popular blue hue
1:20 · for centuries.
1:21 · But there's not a ton of lapis lazuli in Europe,
1:24 · so ultramarine was ultra-expensive.
1:28 · However, Europeans did have
1:30 · plenty of azurite from deposits
1:31 · in modern-day Slovakia, France,
1:34 · Hungary and Sardinia,
1:35 · making it much cheaper than ultramarine.
1:37 · So for artists on a budget,
1:39 · it became the natural choice.
1:40 · And these artists even came up with a clever trick
1:43 · to stretch their supply of ultramarine further,
1:45 · using azurite.
1:46 · They'd apply the azurite as an underpaint
1:49 · and then paint just the top layer with ultramarine,
1:52 · meaning you'd need less of the pricey stuff
1:54 · to cover your canvas.
1:55 · But there's one small problem.
1:57 · Over time, azurite can react
1:59 · with water molecules in the air,
2:01 · which causes the azurite to lose
2:03 · some of the carbonate in the crystal.
2:05 · And that reaction turns it
2:06 · into a green-colored copper mineral
2:08 · called malachite.
2:09 · Azurite and malachite
2:11 · are chemically very similar,
2:12 · but malachite is more stable.
2:14 · Which means that under certain conditions,
2:16 · azurite can just turn into malachite.
2:18 · So, it's common to find parts of medieval paintings
2:21 · that were once bright blue,
2:22 · but now are a muddy greenish color,
2:25 · which was probably not
2:26 · what the original artists intended.
2:27 · While azurite's blue-green color shift
2:29 · may have been unintentional,
2:31 · other artists around the world
2:32 · found ways of manipulating the pigment
2:34 · to choose the kind of blue they got.
2:37 · Take the art from China and Japan,
2:38 · for example.
2:39 · Artists in Asia
2:40 · found that playing
2:41 · with the size of the pigment particles
2:43 · alters its refractive properties,
2:45 · and thus the color of the paint.
2:47 · For instance,
2:47 · grinding azurite superfine makes it a light blue,
2:51 · whereas coarser particles give a darker shade.
2:54 · And heating it up could help artists
2:56 · achieve an even deeper blue.
2:57 · In some Asian cultures,
2:59 · azurite symbolized longevity and immortality,
3:02 · meaning that paintings might feature
3:04 · huge boulders of azurite in the background.
3:06 · And when you want to paint a picture
3:08 · with azurite rocks in it,
3:09 · what better color is there than azurite paint?
3:11 · But azurite was a lot rarer in Asia
3:14 · than it was in Europe,
3:15 · which made the paint more expensive.
3:17 · During the Ming dynasty in China,
3:19 · the royal courts ended up devoting
3:20 · a ton of resources to extracting it.
3:23 · It was even collected as a tax
3:25 · from Chinese provinces,
3:26 · and at one time it was
3:27 · 2000 times more valuable than silver.
3:30 · So when artists would paint portraits with azurite,
3:33 · they were really showing off their subjects' wealth
3:35 · and standing in society.
3:37 · But while we know that a lot of cultures
3:39 · did use azurite pigments in their artwork,
3:41 · there's one big blue-loving civilization
3:44 · that somehow never turned to azurite.
3:46 · Or at least, that's what we thought.
3:48 · The ancient Egyptians
3:49 · used a ton of blue in their art,
3:51 · but their go-to pigment wasn't a natural one.
3:54 · The pigment known as Egyptian blue
3:56 · was made by heating up scrap copper with sand,
3:59 · lime and soda, which sounds tastier than it was.
4:02 · And from what we can tell,
4:03 · most of the blue in Egyptian art comes
4:06 · from this man-made pigment.
4:07 · But there's a mystery.
4:09 · There are plenty of azurite deposits
4:11 · on the Sinai peninsula close to Egypt,
4:13 · and we know the Egyptians
4:15 · mined a lot of their copper from that region.
4:17 · So scholars have always wondered
4:19 · why Egyptian artists never seemed
4:20 · to use that azurite stash alongside Egyptian blue.
4:24 · And the mystery took more than a hundred years to solve.
4:27 · See, there was this archaeologist
4:29 · who found a seashell with blue pigment
4:31 · smeared inside it way back in 1895,
4:34 · and he thought the shell was used
4:36 · as a painter's palette.
4:37 · He also declared that the pigment in that shell
4:40 · was azurite.
4:41 · However, he never wrote down,
4:43 · like, how he figured that out.
4:45 · So we have no way of knowing
4:46 · if he was right about it being azurite or not,
4:49 · which has led other researchers to be…
4:51 · a little bit skeptical.
4:52 · And for literally a hundred years,
4:54 · this was the only time any researcher
4:57 · had even suggested that Egyptians
4:59 · used azurite pigment anywhere.
5:01 · It took until the mid-2000s
5:03 · for the presence of azurite
5:04 · to actually be confirmed in Egyptian art.
5:07 · And this time they did write down
5:09 · how they did it.
5:10 · Specifically, they used a technique
5:11 · called Raman spectroscopy,
5:13 · which analyzes how light is absorbed
5:15 · by a mineral sample.
5:17 · It's so specific that every mineral's signature
5:20 · is pretty much unique,
5:21 · like a fingerprint.
5:22 · To be clear,
5:23 · they were not looking at the same artist's palette
5:25 · identified back in 1895,
5:27 · so still no word on whether that guy
5:30 · was right or not.
5:31 · But they did definitively show that their blue pigment specimens
5:34 · were indeed natural azurite and not artificial Egyptian blue.
5:38 · And that's not all.
5:40 · While preparing an exhibition on the the pharaoh Hatshepsut,
5:43 · the Metropolitan Museum in New York
5:45 · analyzed some artifacts from her reign,
5:47 · dating to around 1550 BCE.
5:50 · Like this mysterious scrap of painted leather
5:52 · that depicts a somewhat,
5:54 · uhh, spicy scene.
5:55 · And while they aren't totally sure
5:57 · what this leather thing was,
5:59 · their analysis showed
6:00 · that the deep blue paint used in the foliage
6:02 · around the edge was made of azurite.
6:05 · So there are at least these two examples of azurite
6:08 · being used in Egyptian art.
6:10 · Huzzah!
6:11 · But researchers still have more questions,
6:13 · like why the mineral was so rarely used,
6:16 · whether it had special significance,
6:18 · and most importantly,
6:20 · whether there's any more azurite in Egyptian art
6:22 · that they haven't found yet.
6:24 · In any case, we do know that this lovely blue rock
6:27 · has been in artists' toolkits for centuries,
6:30 · which is pretty cool!
6:31 · And this month,
6:32 · our SciShow Rocks Box subscribers
6:34 · will be getting a beautiful piece of azurite
6:36 · sent right to their doors.
6:38 · Whether you make yours into paints
6:39 · is up to you.
6:40 · If you'd like to sign up for the Rocks Box subscription,
6:43 · head over to SciShow.Rocks to learn more.
6:46 · And watch that space,
6:48 · because we've got some big announcements
6:49 · coming soon!
6:59 · [ outro ]

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Transcript
0:00	·	The Mineral That Painted The World Blue
0:00	·	It's no secret that humans love to make art.
0:02	·	But to make good art, you need good supplies.
0:05	·	A sculptor needs clay,
0:07	·	a musician needs an instrument,
0:08	·	and a painter needs paints.
0:10	·	For as long as we've been painting the town
0:12	·	red, or green, or aquamarine,
0:15	·	we've needed to find the best pigments for the job.
0:17	·	Which is where this striking mineral
0:20	·	called azurite comes in.
0:22	·	For thousands of years, people all over the world
0:24	·	have used this pretty blue rock
0:26	·	to make pretty blue art.
0:28	·	But the biggest mystery surrounding azurite
0:30	·	has been why one group in particular…
0:32	·	didn't.
0:34	·	[intro]
0:36	·	Azurite is a naturally occurring
0:38	·	copper carbonate mineral
0:40	·	that tends to form near
0:41	·	the top of copper ore deposits,
0:43	·	when the metal-rich rock
0:45	·	becomes weathered and oxidized.
0:47	·	If you've ever seen a copper penny in your home
0:49	·	turn a kind of bluish-green
0:50	·	when it's exposed to the elements for too long,
0:52	·	it's basically that.
0:54	·	Azurite is named for azure,
0:56	·	which just means blue in a bunch of languages.
0:58	·	And when it's crushed,
0:59	·	it turns into a blue powder
1:01	·	that people quickly realized
1:02	·	can be used as a pigment.
1:04	·	It's even been called
1:05	·	the most important blue pigment
1:07	·	in medieval European art.
1:08	·	If you know anything about art from this period,
1:11	·	you might think of the blues
1:12	·	as coming from ultramarine, not azurite.
1:15	·	Ultramarine is made from the mineral lapis lazuli,
1:18	·	and it has also been a popular blue hue
1:20	·	for centuries.
1:21	·	But there's not a ton of lapis lazuli in Europe,
1:24	·	so ultramarine was ultra-expensive.
1:28	·	However, Europeans did have
1:30	·	plenty of azurite from deposits
1:31	·	in modern-day Slovakia, France,
1:34	·	Hungary and Sardinia,
1:35	·	making it much cheaper than ultramarine.
1:37	·	So for artists on a budget,
1:39	·	it became the natural choice.
1:40	·	And these artists even came up with a clever trick
1:43	·	to stretch their supply of ultramarine further,
1:45	·	using azurite.
1:46	·	They'd apply the azurite as an underpaint
1:49	·	and then paint just the top layer with ultramarine,
1:52	·	meaning you'd need less of the pricey stuff
1:54	·	to cover your canvas.
1:55	·	But there's one small problem.
1:57	·	Over time, azurite can react
1:59	·	with water molecules in the air,
2:01	·	which causes the azurite to lose
2:03	·	some of the carbonate in the crystal.
2:05	·	And that reaction turns it
2:06	·	into a green-colored copper mineral
2:08	·	called malachite.
2:09	·	Azurite and malachite
2:11	·	are chemically very similar,
2:12	·	but malachite is more stable.
2:14	·	Which means that under certain conditions,
2:16	·	azurite can just turn into malachite.
2:18	·	So, it's common to find parts of medieval paintings
2:21	·	that were once bright blue,
2:22	·	but now are a muddy greenish color,
2:25	·	which was probably not
2:26	·	what the original artists intended.
2:27	·	While azurite's blue-green color shift
2:29	·	may have been unintentional,
2:31	·	other artists around the world
2:32	·	found ways of manipulating the pigment
2:34	·	to choose the kind of blue they got.
2:37	·	Take the art from China and Japan,
2:38	·	for example.
2:39	·	Artists in Asia
2:40	·	found that playing
2:41	·	with the size of the pigment particles
2:43	·	alters its refractive properties,
2:45	·	and thus the color of the paint.
2:47	·	For instance,
2:47	·	grinding azurite superfine makes it a light blue,
2:51	·	whereas coarser particles give a darker shade.
2:54	·	And heating it up could help artists
2:56	·	achieve an even deeper blue.
2:57	·	In some Asian cultures,
2:59	·	azurite symbolized longevity and immortality,
3:02	·	meaning that paintings might feature
3:04	·	huge boulders of azurite in the background.
3:06	·	And when you want to paint a picture
3:08	·	with azurite rocks in it,
3:09	·	what better color is there than azurite paint?
3:11	·	But azurite was a lot rarer in Asia
3:14	·	than it was in Europe,
3:15	·	which made the paint more expensive.
3:17	·	During the Ming dynasty in China,
3:19	·	the royal courts ended up devoting
3:20	·	a ton of resources to extracting it.
3:23	·	It was even collected as a tax
3:25	·	from Chinese provinces,
3:26	·	and at one time it was
3:27	·	2000 times more valuable than silver.
3:30	·	So when artists would paint portraits with azurite,
3:33	·	they were really showing off their subjects' wealth
3:35	·	and standing in society.
3:37	·	But while we know that a lot of cultures
3:39	·	did use azurite pigments in their artwork,
3:41	·	there's one big blue-loving civilization
3:44	·	that somehow never turned to azurite.
3:46	·	Or at least, that's what we thought.
3:48	·	The ancient Egyptians
3:49	·	used a ton of blue in their art,
3:51	·	but their go-to pigment wasn't a natural one.
3:54	·	The pigment known as Egyptian blue
3:56	·	was made by heating up scrap copper with sand,
3:59	·	lime and soda, which sounds tastier than it was.
4:02	·	And from what we can tell,
4:03	·	most of the blue in Egyptian art comes
4:06	·	from this man-made pigment.
4:07	·	But there's a mystery.
4:09	·	There are plenty of azurite deposits
4:11	·	on the Sinai peninsula close to Egypt,
4:13	·	and we know the Egyptians
4:15	·	mined a lot of their copper from that region.
4:17	·	So scholars have always wondered
4:19	·	why Egyptian artists never seemed
4:20	·	to use that azurite stash alongside Egyptian blue.
4:24	·	And the mystery took more than a hundred years to solve.
4:27	·	See, there was this archaeologist
4:29	·	who found a seashell with blue pigment
4:31	·	smeared inside it way back in 1895,
4:34	·	and he thought the shell was used
4:36	·	as a painter's palette.
4:37	·	He also declared that the pigment in that shell
4:40	·	was azurite.
4:41	·	However, he never wrote down,
4:43	·	like, how he figured that out.
4:45	·	So we have no way of knowing
4:46	·	if he was right about it being azurite or not,
4:49	·	which has led other researchers to be…
4:51	·	a little bit skeptical.
4:52	·	And for literally a hundred years,
4:54	·	this was the only time any researcher
4:57	·	had even suggested that Egyptians
4:59	·	used azurite pigment anywhere.
5:01	·	It took until the mid-2000s
5:03	·	for the presence of azurite
5:04	·	to actually be confirmed in Egyptian art.
5:07	·	And this time they did write down
5:09	·	how they did it.
5:10	·	Specifically, they used a technique
5:11	·	called Raman spectroscopy,
5:13	·	which analyzes how light is absorbed
5:15	·	by a mineral sample.
5:17	·	It's so specific that every mineral's signature
5:20	·	is pretty much unique,
5:21	·	like a fingerprint.
5:22	·	To be clear,
5:23	·	they were not looking at the same artist's palette
5:25	·	identified back in 1895,
5:27	·	so still no word on whether that guy
5:30	·	was right or not.
5:31	·	But they did definitively show that their blue pigment specimens
5:34	·	were indeed natural azurite and not artificial Egyptian blue.
5:38	·	And that's not all.
5:40	·	While preparing an exhibition on the the pharaoh Hatshepsut,
5:43	·	the Metropolitan Museum in New York
5:45	·	analyzed some artifacts from her reign,
5:47	·	dating to around 1550 BCE.
5:50	·	Like this mysterious scrap of painted leather
5:52	·	that depicts a somewhat,
5:54	·	uhh, spicy scene.
5:55	·	And while they aren't totally sure
5:57	·	what this leather thing was,
5:59	·	their analysis showed
6:00	·	that the deep blue paint used in the foliage
6:02	·	around the edge was made of azurite.
6:05	·	So there are at least these two examples of azurite
6:08	·	being used in Egyptian art.
6:10	·	Huzzah!
6:11	·	But researchers still have more questions,
6:13	·	like why the mineral was so rarely used,
6:16	·	whether it had special significance,
6:18	·	and most importantly,
6:20	·	whether there's any more azurite in Egyptian art
6:22	·	that they haven't found yet.
6:24	·	In any case, we do know that this lovely blue rock
6:27	·	has been in artists' toolkits for centuries,
6:30	·	which is pretty cool!
6:31	·	And this month,
6:32	·	our SciShow Rocks Box subscribers
6:34	·	will be getting a beautiful piece of azurite
6:36	·	sent right to their doors.
6:38	·	Whether you make yours into paints
6:39	·	is up to you.
6:40	·	If you'd like to sign up for the Rocks Box subscription,
6:43	·	head over to SciShow.Rocks to learn more.
6:46	·	And watch that space,
6:48	·	because we've got some big announcements
6:49	·	coming soon!
6:59	·	[ outro ]