Cerulean, also spelled caerulean, may be applied to a range of colors from deep blue, sky-blue, bright blue or azure color through greenish blue colors.
The first recorded use of cerulean as a color name in English was in 1590.[1] The word is probably derived from the Latin word caeruleus, "dark blue, blue or blue-green", which in turn probably derives from caelulum, diminutive of caelum, "heaven, sky".[2]
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In classical times, cerulean was used to describe blue pigments, particularly mixtures of copper and cobaltous oxides. These early attempts to create sky blue colors were often less than satisfactory due to greenish hues and lack of permanence. When the pigment cerulean blue (shown in the color box to the right) was invented, it largely superseded all these prior pigments. See also Tekhelet.
Discovered in 1805 by Andreas Höpfner, the pigment originally referred to as cerulean blue (or corruleum blue) was first marketed in 1860 as "coeruleum" by George Rowney of the United Kingdom. The primary chemical constituent of the pigment is cobalt(II) stannate.[3][4][5]
It is particularly valuable for artistic painting of skies because of the purity of the blue (specifically the lack of greenish hues), its permanence (no other blue pigments retained color as well), and its opaqueness.[6]
Today, cobalt chromate is sometimes marketed under the cerulean blue name but is darker and greener (Rex Art color index PB 36) than the cobalt stannate version (color index PB 35). The chromate makes excellent turquoise colors and is identified by Rex Art and some other manufacturers as "cobalt turquoise".[7][8]
| Cerulean (Pantone) | ||
|---|---|---|
|
— Color coordinates — |
||
| Hex triplet | #98B4D4 | |
| RGBB | (r, g, b) | (152, 180, 212) |
| HSV | (h, s, v) | (212°, 28%, 83%) |
| Source | PerBang.dk[9] | |
| B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) |
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Pantone, in a press release, declared the pale tone of cerulean at right, which they call cerulean, as the "color of the millennium".[9]
| Cerulean (Crayola) | ||
|---|---|---|
|
— Color coordinates — |
||
| Hex triplet | #1DACD6 | |
| RGBB | (r, g, b) | (29, 172, 214) |
| HSV | (h, s, v) | (209°, 94%, 49%) |
| Source | Crayola | |
| B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) |
||
This bright tone of cerulean is the color called cerulean by Crayola crayons.
| Cerulean frost | ||
|---|---|---|
|
— Color coordinates — |
||
| Hex triplet | #6D9BC3 | |
| RGBB | (r, g, b) | (109, 155, 195) |
| HSV | (h, s, v) | (208°, 44%, 77[10]%) |
| Source | Crayola | |
| B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) |
||
At right is displayed the color cerulean frost.
Cerulean frost is one of the colors in the special set of metallic colored Crayola crayons called Silver Swirls, the colors of which were formulated by Crayola in 1990.
| Cerulean blue pigment | ||
|---|---|---|
|
— Color coordinates — |
||
| Hex triplet | #2A52BE | |
| RGBB | (r, g, b) | (42, 82, 190) |
| HSV | (h, s, v) | (224°, 78%, 75%) |
| Source | Internet (averaged swatch) | |
| B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) |
||
Pigments through the ages shows a "Painted swatch of cerulean blue" that is representative of the actual cobalt stannate pigment. The color coordinates for a smoothed average of that swatch are shown at the right.[11]
| Shades of cyan | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alice blue | Aqua | Aquamarine | Celeste | Cerulean | Cyan | Electric blue | Jungle green | Magic mint | Mint |
| Persian green | Pine green | Robin egg blue | Sea green | Skobeloff | Tiffany Blue | Teal | Turquoise | ||
| The samples shown above are only indicative. | |||||||||
