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Cyanotype

Art
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A photographic printing process that produces images in deep blue tones.

Detailed Definition
Cyanotype uses light-sensitive chemicals to create distinctive Prussian blue prints, often from objects placed directly on treated paper. Its ghostly silhouettes and archival appearance make it especially evocative for poetry. A poem may invoke cyanotype when considering traces, botanical forms, absence, or memory fixed by exposure. The process also offers a metaphor for how experience leaves an image after contact with time, light, and loss.
Example
Example in poetry:
A cyanotype poem can draw on the process in which sunlight creates deep blue images from objects placed on treated paper; A poet might use the white silhouette in a cyanotype as a metaphor for an absence made visible; In an ekphrastic poem, leaves, lace, or hands printed in Prussian blue can evoke memory and exposure; Write a poem in blue imagery, letting sunlight reveal rather than erase the speaker's hidden objects
Additional Notes
Cyanotypes use light-sensitive chemicals and sunlight to create blue-and-white prints, often from objects or negatives.
Also Known As
Blueprint Sun Print
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