Why “smalt” is a great word
SMALT — [Noun] A deep blue pigment of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, manufactured by fusing cobalt oxide with powdered glass to create a coarse, granular frit. From Italian smalto ("enamel"), from Medieval Latin smaltum, from Frankish *smalt, from Proto-Germanic *smeltaną ("to melt, smelt"). First attested in English in the mid-16th century. Unlike "cobalt blue," which denotes purer, more stable chemical compounds, or "ultramarine," a luxurious mineral hue ground from lapis lazuli, smalt is the humble, granular artifice of the furnace. It is the gritty sparkle in the robes of a Venetian Madonna, the slightly faded heaven in a Dutch still-life sky, and the dulled, granulating wash on a mapmaker’s ocean. A color born of fire and alchemy, it is the ambition to capture the infinite with common silica and metal, knowing the result will never be as pure as the dream.