What is the cobalt blue?
Cobalt Blue is a blue pigment made of one of the series of combinations of cobalt, aluminum and oxygen. Cobalt pigments produce a cool blue color and have been preferred by painters such as Maxfield Parrish for Painting Heaven. It is also an important traditional pigment in Chinese porcelain.
Cobalt Blue pigment consists of either cobalt oxide oxide (II) or cobalt (II) oxide. These pigments differ slightly in their chemical composition, but both are a product of finely ground cobalt oxide and aluminum oxide or aluminum oxide, which combines a process known as "salivation". Pigment manufacturers grind both substances, mix them together and submit them to intensive heat to connect them.
Cobalt Blue is the main pigment used in the characteristic Chinese blue and white porcelain, known as Qing-Hua or porcelain "blue flower". First known examples of this type of pigment date from the seventh century in China, although examples of blue P -based cobalt pigments are known from ancient Greece, Egypt and roofThe east of the east. Porcelain manufacturers imported cobalt from the Middle East to create a pigment. To decorate porcelain, Potters first produced the vessels themselves and then applied the decoration manually before glazing. The Chinese blue-white pottery pigments are made of Smaltite, the form of cobalt oxide, while most of the modern cobalt pigment uses cobalt clay.
Although Chinese porcelain has been made of cobalt blue pigment for centuries, cobalt blue has appeared in Europe separately. Medieval European Glassmakers added a small amount of enamel to quartz and potassium carbonate to make the ingredients for dark blue glass known as enamel. Although it produced a dark blue color in the glass, pigments based on enamel were unsuitable for painting due to their tendency to disappear over time.
in 1802, French chemist Louis Jacques Thénard discussed a slightly different form of pigment, which became popular among painters. The mines in Norway and Germany created most of the European cobalt and these countries were known for their cobalt pigments. This pigment, based on cobalt aluminates, is most often referred to as "cobalt blue".
European miners have been aware of the existence of cobalt for some time. The name "cobalt" comes from the German word "Kobold", the name of the type of malicious goblin. Cobaltite and Smaltite are common cobalt ores with which it is very difficult to work with. Other ore ore can be difficult to realize and can release high -poisonous dust. Due to the "mischievous" nature of these ores they were named after the annoying underground goblins.