ABSTRACT
Nowadays, our daily life is becoming more and more colorful.
Paintings of cars and various household electric appliances aremuch
more colorful than before, the display of a television set provides
us stimulating colors, and wrapping paper and decorations are
so beautiful. Especially, we are often anxious about the brilliantly
colored coatings that change their colors with viewing angles. One
may think such coatings were not present in old days. However, our
ancestors skillfully used such strange colors to decorate craftwork.
Plumes using peacock feathers, mother-of-pearl inlay work, opal,
and Tamamushi-no-zushi (Japanese miniature shrine whose pillars
are decorated with the jewel beetle’s wings) are typical examples.
In these decorations, natural products were used without further
modifications, while recent rapidly growing nanotechnology can
make it possible to mass-produce these decorations.
