Persian blue comes in three major tones: Persian blue proper: a bright medium

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...

; medium Persian blue (a medium slightly grayish blue that is slightly indigoish); and a kind of dark

which is referred to as Persian indigo, dark Persian blue, or regimental, that is much closer to the

web color Web colors are colors used in displaying web pages on the World Wide Web, and the methods for describing and specifying those colors. Colors may be specified as an RGB triplet or in hexadecimal format (a ''hex triplet'') or according to their c ...

indigo Indigo is a deep color close to the color wheel blue (a primary color in the RGB color space), as well as to some variants of ultramarine, based on the ancient dye of the same name. The word "indigo" comes from the Latin word ''indicum'', m ...

. Other colors associated with Persia include Persian pink, Persian rose,

Persian red Persian red is a deep reddish orange earth or pigment from the Persian Gulf composed of a silicate of iron and alumina, with magnesia. It is also called artificial vermillion. The first recorded use of ''Persian red'' as a color name in Engl ...

, Persian orange and

Persian green Persian green is a color used in pottery and Persian carpets in Iran. It is also utilized in the architecture of religious places. Other colors associated with Persia include Shades of pink#Persian pink, Persian pink, Shades of rose#Persian rose, ...

Persian blue

The color Persian blue is named from the blue color of some

Persian pottery Persian pottery or Iranian pottery is the pottery made by the artists of Persia (Iran) and its history goes back to early Neolithic Age (7th millennium BCE). Agriculture gave rise to the baking of clay, and the making of utensils by the peopl ...

and the color of

tile Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, walls, edges, or o ...

s used in and on mosques and palaces in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and in other places in the Middle East. ''Persian blue'' is a representation of the color of the mineral lapis lazuli which comes from

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

(i.e. modern Iran) and

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. (The color azure is also named after the mineral lapis lazuli.) The first recorded use of ''Persian blue'' as a color name in English was in 1669.

Variations

Medium Persian blue

The medium tone of Persian blue shown at right is the color called ''Persian blue'' in color sample #178 of the ISCC-NBS color list.

Persian indigo

The color Persian indigo is displayed at right. Another name for this color (seldom used nowadays) is regimental. The color was called regimental because in the 19th century it was commonly used by many nations for navy uniforms. ''Persian indigo'' is named for an association with a product from Persia: Persian cloth dyed with

. The first recorded use of ''regimental'' (the original name for the color now called Persian indigo) as a color name in English was in 1912.

In human culture

Architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

* Many

mosque A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...

s in

, such as the enormous Shah Mosque in Isfahan, have interiors that are faced with

s that are ''Persian blue'' or close variations of it. Picture of the Interior of the Shah Mosque:

Military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

* The color ''Persian indigo'', which as noted above was originally called ''regimental'', was called by that name because it used to be the color of the

navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It in ...

uniforms of a number of different

nation A nation is a community of people formed on the basis of a combination of shared features such as language, history, ethnicity, culture and/or society. A nation is thus the collective Identity (social science), identity of a group of people unde ...

s in the late 19th and early 20th centuries due to the fact that it was easy and inexpensive to use indigo dye to dye navy uniforms.

New Age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consi ...

Metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

* The

metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

books (on topics such as the seven rays) written by the

Prophetess Alice A. Bailey (which she claimed to have channeled from the ascended master Djwal Khul), published by the Lucis Trust and called by her followers the '' Alice A. Bailey material'', in earlier editions up to and including the 1970s were originally bound in

matte Matte may refer to: Art * paint with a non-glossy finish. See diffuse reflection. * a framing element surrounding a painting or watercolor within the outer frame Film * Matte (filmmaking), filmmaking and video production technology * Matte p ...

''medium Persian blue'', but since the 1980s, they have been bound in

glossy Gloss is an optical property which indicates how well a surface reflects light in a specular (mirror-like) direction. It is one of the important parameters that are used to describe the visual appearance of an object. The factors that affect glo ...

''Persian blue''.

Persian carpet A Persian carpet ( fa, فرش ایرانی, translit=farš-e irâni ) or Persian rug ( fa, قالی ایرانی, translit=qâli-ye irâni ),Savory, R., ''Carpets'',(Encyclopaedia Iranica); accessed January 30, 2007. also known as Iranian ...

s * When blue

s are produced in Iran, ''medium Persian blue'' is one of the most commonly used tones of blue.

References

External links

* (1870): A painting by

Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Léon Gérôme (11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism. His paintings were so widely reproduced that he was "arguably the world's most famous living artist by 1880." The ra ...

which shows a snake charmer in a Persian market with Persian blue tiles in the background {{Shades of violet Shades of blue