Why We're Called Ultramarine

by Catalina Bonati

Ultramarine is the bluest blue. Historically, it has been made from lapis lazuli that could only be sourced in the Sar-e-Sang mines in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan. The lapis was ground in a bronze mortar and mixed with resin, wax, and vegetable oils and then heated to form a gelatinous substance which was then kneaded with a lye solution for three days. Because of the strenuous way in which the pigment was obtained, ultramarine blue was once more expensive than the stone that it came from and more expensive than gold. In The Craftsman’s Handbook (1437), the Italian virtuoso painter Cennino Cennini referred to ultramarine as “illustrious, beautiful, and most perfect, beyond all other colors […].” Because of its cost, it was associated with spiritual figures and often used to paint the Virgin Mary’s robes. Most famously, to paint the coif on The Girl With the Pearl Earring’s head.

The beauty of the ultramarine color lies in its proximity to the elements; from the night sky, ocean depths, and ice floes. The iridescent blue of a stag beetle or a tropical morpho butterfly, the American ebony jewelwing , the chrysolina beetle, or the bobtail squid. Bioluminescent seas and deep blue auroras, blue lupine and deep blue and black opals are some of the most sublime expressions of nature. We take it with us through time and into modernity, into our hair dye, our evening cocktails, the paint on our houses or our yarns for crochet. It’s a color of calm and introspection.

Ultramarine blue fortunately is no longer the pricey object of desire of medieval times. According to The Paris Review, Michelangelo could not afford ultramarine. Now, it’s a regularly-priced acrylic that you can buy at your local crafts store, a nail polish that you can buy at normal price at a makeup store. As a literary review, we aim to represent works that showcase such a richly storied past and turn it into a beautiful appreciation of nature which can be expressed as much through creative approximations to the earth or through urbanism and cosmopolitanism. Ultramarine is a representative colour of our identity as a review—we aspire to be reflective appreciators of earnest narratives that calmly observe our modern times and give weight to our past. Like ultramarine, literature is not meant to be kept hidden and known by a few, but should be shared and celebrated by many.