( 그림공부 ) Color story-ultramarine(소위 군청색 )

 

세계적인 물감 회사 Winsor & Newton 사에서 보내온 메일에 소위 군청색이라고

Ultramarine color 에 대한 아주 흥미있는 이야기가 있어 옮긴다.

사실 내가 가장 좋아하는 색깔로 종종 그림에 너무 많이 사용한다는 지적도 

받곤 하지만..

다른 색깔에 대한 흥미있는 이야기도 있으니 그것들은 점차 하나씩 올리기로 하고

( 번역은 구글 번역, 원문은 맨 뒤에 )

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한때 금보다 더 귀중하다고 여겨졌던 군청은 종종 성모 마리아의 예복에 사용되었습니다.

이 특별한 색상의 진화를 추적해봅니다.
종종 '진한 파란색'이라고 불리는 밝은 짙은 파란색 군청 안료는 예술가들에게 그 자체로

또는 귀중한 혼합 색상으로 사랑받고 있습니다. 이 이름은 라틴어로 '초월'을 의미하는 '울트라'와

바다를 의미하는 '마레'의 조합에서 유래되었으며, 유럽인들이 아시아에서 바다를 건너

이 돌을 수입했다는 것을 의미합니다.

군청은 생산 비용이 너무 많이 들었기 때문에 한때 금보다 더 가치가 있었습니다. 

그러나 르네상스 예술가들 사이에서 매우 존경을 받아 베르메르는 군청을 자주 사용했기 

때문에 가족을 빚더미에 빠뜨렸습니다. 우리는 그 출처인 생생한 파란색 반귀석에서 

오늘날 널리 퍼진 합성 대체품에 이르기까지의 여정을 따라갑니다.

군청: 고대 청색 안료의 역사와 기원

군청은 땅에서 추출됩니다. 아프가니스탄의 라피스라줄리(라틴어로 '푸른 돌')로 알려진 

준보석으로 만들어집니다. 가장 오래된 청색 안료 중 하나이며, 바미얀 동굴 사원에서 

장식용 돌로서 군청의 초기 증거는 서기 6세기와 7세기로 거슬러 올라갑니다.

 

James St. John, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons [Left image]

Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons [Right image]

 

 

라피스라줄리는 라주라이트, 규산염, 황철석으로 구성되어 있습니다. 

채굴된 이 돌은 고대 이집트와 수메르에서 보석, 머리 장식, 심지어 클레오파트라의 

아이섀도 형태의 화장품과 같은 품목을 장식하는 데 사용되었습니다. 

하지만 파란색 안료는 훨씬 후에 추출되었습니다. 10세기와 11세기의 중국 그림, 

11세기, 12세기, 17세기의 인도 벽화, 1100년경의 앵글로색슨과 노르만 채색 사본에 

사용되었다는 증거가 있습니다. 15세기에 예술가 센니노 센니니는 

그의 Il Libro dell’Arte에서 군청을 '모든 안료를 능가하는 영광스럽고 사랑스럽고 

절대적으로 완벽한 안료'라고 설명했습니다. 라피스라줄리는 나중에 실크로드에서 

거래되었습니다. 시리아에서 베니스로 항해하는 배에 실렸고, 그곳에서 유럽의 

다른 지역으로 거래되었습니다.

천연 군청의 값비싼 유산
라피스라줄리에서 군청을 추출하는 데 시간이 많이 걸리는 과정과 원산지에서 이동해야 

하는 거리를 합치면 천연 군청은 엄청나게 비싼 안료가 되었습니다. 

그래서 한때는 그램 단위로 무게를 달 때 금보다 더 귀중하다고 여겨졌습니다. 

라피스라줄리에서 진짜 군청 안료를 생산하는 것은 복잡하고 긴 과정이었습니다. 

채굴한 광물을 갈아서 수지, 아마씨 기름 또는 왁스와 섞은 다음 가열하여 반죽과 같은 

혼합물을 만들었습니다. 이것을 빵처럼 반죽하고 알칼리 용액에 넣어 파란색 조각이 분리되고 

가라앉고 건조되도록 한 다음 결과적으로 미세한 파란색 분말 안료가 되었습니다. 

그런 다음 이 과정을 반복하여 매번 더 미세한 안료를 생산했는데, 이는 돌에서 비교적 적은 

양의 군청 안료를 추출할 수 있다는 것을 의미합니다. 그럼에도 불구하고 바위에 있는 

보이지 않는 불순물이 없고 페인트 색상을 손상시키지 않는 고품질의 파란색 안료가 만들어졌습니다.

안료의 귀중함은 그림에 어떻게 사용되었는지를 결정했습니다. 예술가들은 이를 아껴서 사용했고, 

베니스에서 최고의 품질과 가격으로 판매된 막대한 비용을 감수해야 했습니다.

미켈란젤로는 작품에 군청을 사용할 여유가 없었다고 하지만, 베르메르는 이 안료에 너무 반해 

군청 없이는 그림을 그리지 않았고, 자주 사용하면서 결국 가족이 빚더미에 빠지게 되었습니다.

1400년부터 군청은 종종 성모 마리아의 옷을 그리는 데 사용되어 그녀의 신성을 

보여주었습니다.하지만 예술가들은 여전히 ​​이 안료를 사용할 때 재정적으로 어려움을 겪었기 

때문에 사소페라토의 기도하는 성모(1660년경)와 같은 중요한 예술 작품에만 사용되었고, 

합성 버전이 등장할 때까지 이 색을 사용하는 것은 특권으로 남았습니다.

 

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring - Koorosh Orooj, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons [Left image]Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons [Right image]

 

프랑스 군청의 발명
1817년 런던 왕립 예술 대학은 합성 군청을 만드는 사람에게 상을 내걸었습니다. 

프랑스 정부의 Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale은 이에 이어 

이 발명품에 대해 6,000프랑이라는 더 큰 상금을 내걸었습니다. 10년 남짓 후인 1828년, 

프랑스 화학자 장바티스트 기메가 성공했습니다. 그의 안료인 프랑스 군청은 점토, 소다, 목탄, 

석영, 유황을 혼합하여 가열하여 녹색 군청 물질을 만든 다음, 분쇄하고 세척한 후 다시 가열하여 

파란색 안료로 전환했습니다. 화학적으로 말하면, 프랑스 군청은 엄청나게 비싼 원본과 동일했고, 

이것이 모든 것을 바꿔놓았습니다.

프랑스 군청: 파란색 안료의 혁명
프랑스 군청은 곧 예술가의 팔레트에 필수적인 추가품이 되었습니다. 

J. M. W. 터너는 1834년에 합성 군청을 사용한 최초의 공인 예술가였습니다. 

터너는 20대 초반에 유화로 전향하여 더 전문적인 지위와 인정을 얻었고, 

21세 때 왕립 아카데미에서 첫 유화 작품인 바다의 어부들을 전시했습니다.

1870년대에 프랑스 군청은 군청의 표준 안료가 되었습니다. 이후의 예술가들은 

군청의 깨끗한 생동감을 기뻐했는데, 모네는 1906년 수련 그림에서 프랑스 군청과 

코발트 블루를 혼합하여 사용했습니다. 1957년 이브 클라인은 IKB(International Klein Blue)라는 

군청 버전을 개발하여 상표 색상으로 등록하고 200개의 단색 그림을 만드는 데 사용했습니다. 

클라인은 이 색상을 특히 순수하다고 여겼고, 자유와 무한한 공간을 나타낸다고 생각했습니다.

 

 

 

J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons [Left image]

Yves Klein, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons [Right image]

 

 

오늘날 윈저 앤 뉴튼은 붉은색 안료가 들어간 풍부하고 투명한 프랑스산 군청색과 

대조적으로 녹색 언더톤이 들어간 진하고 투명한 파란색인 시원한 군청색(녹색 음영)을 생산합니다. 

둘 다 보라색, 녹색, 심지어 중성색을 만드는 뛰어난 블렌딩 특성을 가지고 있지만 

제한된 팔레트로 작업하는 데에도 적합합니다.
한때 희귀하고 귀중한 안료였던 군청색은 이제 예술가들에게 인기가 많습니다.

 

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Once considered more precious than gold, ultramarine was often used for the Virgin Mary's robes. Trace the evolution of this special colour.

Often referred to as ‘true blue’, the brilliant deep-blue Ultramarine pigment is beloved by artists on its own or as a valuable mixing colour. Its name derives from the combination of Latin for ‘ultra’, meaning beyond, and ‘mare’, meaning sea, referring to Europeans having imported the stone over the seas from Asia.

Because it was so costly to produce, Ultramarine was once worth more than gold. Yet it was so revered among Renaissance artists that Vermeer drove his family into debt because of his frequent Ultramarine use. We follow the journey from its source – a vibrant blue semi-precious stone – to today’s widespread synthetic alternative.

Ultramarine: History and origins of the ancient blue pigment

 

Ultramarine is extracted from the earth – it is made from a semi-precious stone known as lapis lazuli (‘the blue stone’ in Latin) from Afghanistan. It is one of the oldest blue pigments, and early evidence of Ultramarine as a decorative stone in the cave temples of Bamiyan dates back to the 6th and 7th centuries AD.

 

Lapis lazuli is made up of the minerals lazurite, silicate and pyrite. The mined stone was used further afield in Ancient Egypt and Sumer, to decorate items such as jewellery, headdresses and even, reportedly, makeup in the form of Cleopatra’s eyeshadow. But the blue pigment was not extracted until much later. There is evidence of it having been used in Chinese paintings from the 10th and 11th centuries, in Indian mural paintings from the 11th, 12th and 17th centuries, and Anglo-Saxon and Norman illuminated manuscripts from circa 1100. In the 15th century, the artist Cennino Cennini described Ultramarine in his Il Libro dell’Arte as a ‘glorious, lovely and absolutely perfect pigment beyond all the pigments’. Lapis lazuli was later traded on the Silk Road. It was loaded onto ships in Syria sailing to Venice, from where it was traded throughout other parts of Europe.

 

The expensive legacy of natural Ultramarine

The time-consuming process of extracting Ultramarine from lapis lazuli, combined with the distances it had to travel from its source, made natural Ultramarine a supremely expensive pigment. So much so that it was once considered more precious than gold when weighed gram by gram. To produce genuine Ultramarine pigment from lapis lazuli was a complex, lengthy process. The mineral mined was ground and mixed with resin, linseed oil or wax, and then heated to form a dough-like mixture. This was kneaded like bread and placed in a lye solution, allowing blue flakes to separate, sink and dry, with the result being a fine blue powder pigment. The process would then be repeated to produce a finer grade of pigment each time, meaning that a comparatively small amount of Ultramarine pigment could be extracted from the stone. Nonetheless, it created a high-quality blue pigment free from the invisible impurities which lay in the rock and damaged the paint colour.

The preciousness of the pigment dictated how it was used in painting. Artists employed it sparingly and had to account for the hefty cost, which was sold at the best quality and price in Venice. Where Michelangelo purportedly couldn’t afford to use Ultramarine for his works, Vermeer was so taken by the pigment he refused to paint without it, his frequent use eventually resulting in his family falling into debt. From the year 1400, Ultramarine was often used to paint the robes of the Virgin Mary, to illustrate her divinity. However, artists were still financially conflicted when using the pigment, so it was reserved for significant works of art, such as Sassoferrato’s Praying Madonna (circa 1660), and it remained a privilege to use the colour until a synthetic version came onto the scene.

 

The invention of French Ultramarine

In 1817, the London Royal College of Art offered a prize to anyone who could produce a synthetic version of Ultramarine. The French Government’s Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale followed this by offering a larger reward of 6,000 francs for the invention. Just over a decade later in 1828, French chemist Jean-Baptiste Guimet was successful. His pigment, French Ultramarine, was made from a mix of clay, soda, charcoal, quartz and sulphur, heated to produce a green Ultramarine substance which was then ground, washed and re-heated to convert it to a blue pigment. Chemically speaking, French Ultramarine was identical to the prohibitively expensive original, and this changed everything.

French Ultramarine: a revolution in blue pigments

French Ultramarine quickly became an essential addition to the artist’s palette. J. M. W. Turner was the first accredited artist to use synthetic Ultramarine, in 1834. Turner turned to oil colours in his early twenties to gain more professional standing and recognition, and exhibited his first oil painting, Fishermen at Sea, at the Royal Academy when he was 21.

By the 1870s French Ultramarine had become the standard pigment for Ultramarine. Later artists would rejoice in its clean vibrancy, such as Monet, who used a mix of French Ultramarine and Cobalt Blue in his 1906 Water Lilies painting. In 1957, Yves Klein developed a version of Ultramarine called IKB (International Klein Blue) which he registered as a trademark colour and used to make 200 monochrome paintings. Klein saw the colour as especially pure, and felt that it represented a sense of freedom and infinite spaces.

 

Today, Winsor & Newton produces a rich, transparent French Ultramarine with a reddish pigment, and in contrast a cooler Ultramarine (Green Shade), a deep transparent blue with green undertones. Both have superb blending properties to make purples, greens and even neutrals, but are also suited to working with a limited palette.

Once a rare and precious pigment, Ultramarine is now a favourite among artists.