Blue color
Blue: The semi-precious stone lapis lazuli was used in ancient Egypt for jeweler and ornament and later, in the Renaissance, to make the pigment ultramarine, the most expensive of all pigments. Distant objects appear bluer because of another optical effect called aerial perspective. Blue has been an important color in art and decoration since ancient times. In the 19th century, synthetic blue dyes and pigments gradually replaced organic dyes and mineral pigments. In US and European public opinion polls it is the most popular color, chosen by almost half of both men and women as their favorite color. Blue is one of the three primary colors in the RYB color model (traditional color theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colors model. An optical effect called Tyndall effect explains blue eyes. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. Europeans wore clothing colored with the vegetable dye woad until it was replaced by the finer indigo from America. In the ...