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IELTS Reading Activity Sheet

The earliest artists used minerals dug from the earth, but few blue minerals were suitable as pigments. As a result, there were no blues used in cave art. Ancient Egyptians commonly used a blue pigment called Egyptian blue, which was likely discovered accidentally during the production of glazed stones. Over centuries, artists relied on the chemical technologies available for supplies of blue, with some discoveries like Maya blue and Prussian blue improving access. However, ultramarine remained very expensive until a method was discovered in 1826 to produce it artificially in large quantities.

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273 views10 pages

IELTS Reading Activity Sheet

The earliest artists used minerals dug from the earth, but few blue minerals were suitable as pigments. As a result, there were no blues used in cave art. Ancient Egyptians commonly used a blue pigment called Egyptian blue, which was likely discovered accidentally during the production of glazed stones. Over centuries, artists relied on the chemical technologies available for supplies of blue, with some discoveries like Maya blue and Prussian blue improving access. However, ultramarine remained very expensive until a method was discovered in 1826 to produce it artificially in large quantities.

Uploaded by

Ailanna Nguen
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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IELTS Reading Activity Sheet

IELTS Reading Exam Practice

The Birth of Blue

As a primary colour, blue has been the most difficult for artists and scientists to create.

Artists have always been enhanced by blue, yet fine blues have long been difficult to
obtain. Blues are relatively rare in nature, and painters throughout the ages have
therefore found themselves at the mercy of what contemporary chemical technology
could offer. Some blues have been prohibitively expensive, others were unreliable. The
quest for a good blue has driven some crucial technological innovations, showing that
the interaction of art and science has not always been a one-way affair.

The first pigments were simply ground-up coloured minerals dug from the earth. But few
blue minerals are suitable as pigments - so there are no blues in cave art. Ancient
Egyptian artists used blue prominently, however, because they knew how to make a fine
artificial pigment, now known as Egyptian blue.

The discovery of Egyptian blue, like that of many other artificial pigments, was almost
certainly an accident. The Egyptians manufactured blue-glazed stones and ornaments
called faience using a technique they inherited from the Mesopotamians. Faience
manufacture was big business in the ancient world-it was traded all over Europe by 1500
BC. Faience is made by heating stone ornaments in a kiln with copper minerals such as
malachite. Egyptian blue, which was made from at least 2500 BC, comes from firing
chalk or limestone with sand and copper minerals, and probably appeared by the chance
mixture of these ingredients in a faience kiln.

Scientists recently deduced the secrets of another ancient blue: Maya blue, used for
centuries throughout central America before the Spanish Conquest. This is a kind of clay
- a mineral made of sheets of atoms - with molecules of the blue dye indigo wedged
between the sheets. Using indigo in this way makes it less liable to decompose. No one
has made colours this way since the Mayas, and no one knows exactly how they did it.
But technologists are now interested in using the same trick to make stable pigments
from other dyes.

The finest pigment available to mediartists was ultramarine, which began to appear in
Western art in the 13th century. It was made from the blue mineral lapis lazuli, of which
only one source was known: the remote mines of Badakshan, now in Afghanistan. In
addition to the difficulty of transporting the mineral over such distances, making the
pigment was a tremendously laborious business. Lapis lazuli turns greyish when
powdered because of impurities in the mineral. To extract the pure blue pigment, the
powder has to be mixed to a dough with wax and kneaded repeatedly in water.

As a result, ultramarine could cost more than its weight in gold, and medieval artists
were very selective in using it. Painters since the Renaissance craved a cheaper, more
accessible, blue to compare with ultramarine. Things improved in 1704, when a Berlin-
based colour maker called Diesbach discovered the first "modern" synthetic pigment:
Prussian blue. Diesbach was trying to make a red pigment, using a recipe that involved
the alkali potash. But Diesbach's potash was contaminated with animal oil, and the
synthesis did not work out as planned. Instead of red, Diesbach made blue.

The oil had reacted to produce cyanide, a vital ingredient of Prussian blue. Diesbach
kept his recipe secret for many years, but it was discovered and published in 1724, after
which anyone could make the colour. By the 1750s, it cost just a tenth of ultramarine.
But it wasn't such a glorious blue, and painters still weren't satisfied. They got a better
alternative in 1802, when the French chemist Louis Jacques Thenard invented cobalt
blue.

Best of all was the discovery in 1826 of a method for making ultramarine itself. The
French Society for the Encouragement of National Industry offered a prize of 6,000
francs in 1824 to anyone who could make artificial ultramarine at an affordable price.
The Toulouse chemist Jean-Baptiste Guimet was awarded the prize two years later,
when he showed that ultramarine could be made by heating china clay, soda, charcoal,
sand and sulphur in a furnace. This meant that there was no longer any need to rely on
the scarce natural source, and ultramarine eventually became a relatively cheap
commercial pigment (called French ultramarine, as it was first mass-produced in Paris).

In the 1950s, synthetic ultramarine became the source of what is claimed to be the
world's most beautiful blue. Invented by the French artist Yves Klein in collaboration with
a Parisian paint manufacturer, Edouard Adam, International Klein Blue is a triumph of
modern chemistry. Klein was troubled by how pigments lost their richness when they
were mixed with liquid binder to make a paint. With Adam's help, he found that a
synthetic resin, thinned with organic solvents, would retain this vibrant texture in the dry
paint layer. In 1957, Klein launched his new blue with a series of monochrome paintings,
and in 1960 he protected his invention with a patent.

Questions 1-4 (Task type: ______ )


Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the
passage for each answer.
The colours used in cave paintings and other early art were made by crushing _____
However, later artists have generally had to rely on the _____ of the day for their
supplies of blue. Among the first examples of the widespread use of blue was
in _____ art. Over the centuries, many more attempts to create acceptable blues have
been made, some of which have led to significant _____.

Questions 5-6 (Task type: ______ )


Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
5 What was the main disadvantage in using ultramarine for medieval artists?
A It contained a number of impurities.
B It was excessively expensive.
C The colour wasn't permanent.
D The preparation process was hazardous.
6 The discovery of Prussian blue was the result of
A using the wrong quantity of an ingredient.
B mixing the wrong ingredients together.
C including an ingredient that was impure.
D using an ingredient of the wrong colour.

Questions 7-12 (Task type: ______ )


Look at the following notes that have been made about the types of blue described
in reading passage.

Match each description with a type of blue.

7 derived from a scarce natural resource  ..........


8 specially designed to retain its depth of colour when used in paint  ..........
9 was cheap to produce but had limited appeal for artists  ..........
10 made using a technique which is not yet fully understood  ..........
11 thought to have been produced during another manufacturing process  ..........
12 came to be manufactured inexpensively in large quantities  ..........

Activity
Look at the example, then read the text below and highlight the topic sentences for the
Exam Practice. The use the suggested method to summarise the text with your partner.
Activity 2

Answer the questions about the mushroom text in Activity 1.

1) At which university was the study carried out?


2) What substance in mushrooms is believed to defend the brain against issues with
recollection?
3) What does the report recommend that people should do to reduce the risk of
dementia?
4) What position does Lei Feng hold at the university?

Activity

Label the examples with the task types.


a.___

b.___

c.___

d.___
e.___

f.___
g.___

h.___
i.___

Activity

Key info (timing, Reading skills Task types General tips and
scoring, etc.) extra info

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