About: Blue pigments

Blue pigments are natural or synthetic materials, usually made from minerals and insoluble with water, used to make the blue colors in painting and other arts. The raw material of the earliest blue pigment, lapis lazuli, came from mines in Afghanistan, was refined into the pigment ultramarine. It was widely used for painting in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Since the late 18th and 19th century, blue pigments are largely synthetic, manufactured in laboratories and factories.