In literature, ultramarine is often celebrated not merely as a pigment, but as a vibrant symbol that evokes deep emotion and vivid natural beauty. Poets and prose writers describe skies, seas, and sumptuous fabrics in shades of ultramarine to suggest mystery, depth, or even passion—as when the sky is painted “ultramarine” to evoke a surreal, radiant quality [1, 2, 3]. At times the hue is used metaphorically, imbuing love or joy with an ineffable richness (“Love, indeed, is an ultramarine and ultramontane joy!” [4]), while in artistic and descriptive passages it anchors a striking contrast against complementary tones, as seen with “deep ultramarine on an old gold background” or in the depiction of velvet so richly hued as to border on the regal [5, 6, 7]. This versatile color, whether applied to the natural world or employed as a literary device to enrich imagery, continues to captivate readers with its blend of physical vibrancy and symbolic resonance [8, 9, 10].
- But the sky was ultramarine and everything radiant with light and warmth—warmth which a soft steady breeze kept from excess.
— from Italian Hours by Henry James
- Morning dawned over the Lago di Vico; its waters of a deep ultramarine blue, and its surrounding forests catching the rays of the rising sun.
— from Italy; with sketches of Spain and Portugal by William Beckford
- In front the sea was a wonderful ultramarine.
— from Kit Musgrave's Luck by Harold Bindloss
- Love, indeed, is an ultramarine and ultramontane joy!
— from The Goddess of Atvatabar
Being the history of the discovery of the interior world and conquest of Atvatabar by William Richard Bradshaw
- In an honour-robe ultramarine: I'm a wee thing of loveliest mien *
— from The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 12 [Supplement]
- It should be done with pale blue silk tights against a cherry velvet drop, or else in deep ultramarine on an old gold background.
— from Adventures in the Arts
Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets by Marsden Hartley
- It is of ultramarine velvet, with a broad black lace turned back over the edge, and a deep curtain.
— from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. II, No. X., March 1851 by Various
- And between this and the fifth section he painted the fourth with golden stars, as above, on a ground of ultramarine.
— from Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 01 (of 10) by Giorgio Vasari
- It was gold when it came on board, and darkened to ultramarine as it thrashed the deck, and its broad dorsal fin showed violet eyes.
— from The Sea and the Jungle by H. M. (Henry Major) Tomlinson
- Nature has dipped her pencil in the faintest solution of ultramarine, and drawn it once across the Western sky with a hand tender as Love’s.
— from The Crest of the Continent: A Summer's Ramble in the Rocky Mountains and Beyond by Ernest Ingersoll