Narrator: Listen to part of the lecture in an art history class.

旁白：请听艺术史的部分讲座。

Professor: Okay. So, when we were discussing Gainsborough's painting, the Blue Boy, which he painted in 1770,

教授: 好的。 所以，当我们讨论盖斯伯勒的画时，就是他在1770年画的蓝色男孩，

I mentioned the story that the painting might have been an experiment.

我提到了这幅画可能是一个实验的故事。

The result of a challenge.

一个挑战的结果。

It was believed that blue couldn't be an important color in a painting because... well... it tends to recede into the background.

据认为，蓝色不能是一幅画中的主要颜色，因为……它往往会与背景融为一体。

Not good for your main subject, right?

不适合你的主题，对吧？

So to show otherwise, Gainsborough created the Blue Boy, with the boy featured large in his famous blue clothes... and... well... I guess he proved his point.

所以，盖恩斯伯勒创造了蓝色男孩，男孩大的特色在于他著名的蓝色衣服……和……好……我猜他证明了他的观点。

But there was another challenge to blue.

但蓝色还有另一个挑战。

It was very very expensive back then.

以前它的价格是非常非常贵的。

Now of course, because of modern chemistry, any color is available in tubes at any art supply store.

现在当然，由于现代化学，任何颜色都可在任何艺术用品商店的颜料管里找到。

But in the 18th century and before, it wasn't so easy.

但在18世纪和以前，这不是那么容易。

And blue... well... the color ultramarine, the most desired shade of blue, was made from the precious stone, Lapis Lazuli, which had to be imported all the way from Afghanistan.

蓝色……好……深蓝色，最需要的蓝色，是从珍贵的石头中获取的，天青石，这种石头必须从阿富汗进口。

And the second most favorite shade of blue, after ultramarine made from Lapis Lazuli, was a shade a blue that came from another precious stone, Azurite.

第二受喜爱的蓝色，在天青石制成的深蓝色后，是另一种蓝色，它来自另一种宝石，蓝铜矿。

But Azurite was... well... harder to work with. There's evidence that artists would try to get around these difficulties.

但是蓝铜矿……更难处理。 有证据表明艺术家会试图应付这些困难。

For example, use pigment from lapis lazuli or azurite very sparingly, and also use something cheaper, like smalt, which was made of ground glass.

例如，非常少量使用来自天青石和蓝铜矿的颜料，并且还使用由磨碎的玻璃制成的更便宜的东西，例如绘画用的色砂。

Thing is, smalt became discolored over time.

事实是，色砂随着时间的推移褪色。

So many artists probably avoided blues altogether rather than use something cheap and impermanent.

所以许多艺术家可能会完全避免使用蓝色，而不是使用便宜和非永久的这种东西。

So,blue, and especially ultramarine pigment, was a luxury, a status symbol, worth even more than gold at times.

所以，蓝色，特别是深蓝色颜料，是一个奢侈品，一个地位的象征，甚至有时比黄金更有价值。

And you even have the wealthy ordering paintings with ultramarine to show others that they could afford something made from this precious pigment, much in the same way they would order gold leaf.

你甚至有财富去订购一副深蓝色的画作，以向其他人展示，他们可以负担得起由这种珍贵颜料做的东西，很大程度上犹如他们订购金箔。

Actually, the ancient Egyptians did manage to make an artificial blue, the first synthetic pigment in fact, if you can believe that.

实际上，古埃及人的确设法制造人造蓝色，如果你能相信的话，这是第一种合成颜料。

They passed the formula on to the Greeks and Romans, but then it was lost.

他们把配方传递给希腊人和罗马人，但后来还是失传了。

Anyway, not only was lapis lazuli hard to get, it was also hard to process.

无论如何，天青石不仅很难得到，它也很难处理。

The recipe was difficult. The stone had to be ground finely, not easy to do with a rock, then mixed with melted wax, resins and oils, wrapped in a cloth and knitted like bread dough.

处方很难。 石头必须很好的磨碎，这对岩石来说不容易，然后与熔化的蜡，树脂和油混合，裹在一块布里，缝成一个面包团的样子。

The fine particles of ultramarine were then separated from the rest.

然后深蓝色的细颗粒与其它部分分离出来。

The process was time-consuming, which also contributed to the high cost of producing ultramarine, and it didn't even yield much usable pigment.

该方法耗时，这也导致了生产深蓝色的成本高，并且它甚至无法产生很多可用的颜料。

As a result, the French government sponsored a competition in 1824 to find a cheaper way to make ultramarine pigment.

因此，法国政府在1824年赞助了一场竞赛，以找到一种更便宜的方式来制造深蓝颜料。

And soon after a process was demonstrated where a combination of coal, sulfur and other cheap, commonplace substances were heated,

不久之后，一个过程被演示出来，其中煤、硫和其他廉价、常见的物质的组合被加热，

creating a suitable synthetic substitute for lapis lazuli.

能创造出一个合适的合成物来替代天青石。

So, there's no doubt that 19th-century artists, after good synthetic versions were available, used more ultramarine.

毫无疑问，19世纪的画家在优质的人造版本出现后使用的深蓝色变多了。

Think of the impressionists, for example. They had a lot more choices or at least, less expensive choices, than painters not that long before them.

例如想想印象派艺术家。比不久之前的画家，他们有更多的选择，或至少，更便宜的选择。