In heraldry, the background of the shield is called the '' field''. The field is usually composed of one or more tinctures (

colour Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...

s or

metal A metal (from ancient Greek, Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, e ...

s) or furs. The field may be

divided Division is one of the four basic operations of arithmetic, the ways that numbers are combined to make new numbers. The other operations are addition, subtraction, and multiplication. At an elementary level the division of two natural numbe ...

or may consist of a variegated pattern. In rare modern cases, the field or a subdivision thereof is not a tincture but is shown as a scene from a landscape, or, in the case of the 329th Fighter Group of the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Si ...

, blazoned as ''the sky proper''.''Air Force Combat Units of World War II'', p.210 Landscape fields are regarded by many heralds as unheraldic and debased, as they defy the heraldic ideal of simple, boldly-coloured images, and they cannot be consistently drawn from

blazon In heraldry and heraldic vexillology, a blazon is a formal description of a coat of arms, flag or similar emblem, from which the reader can reconstruct the appropriate image. The verb ''to blazon'' means to create such a description. The ...

. The arms of the Inveraray and District Community Council in Scotland have as a field ''In waves of the sea''. The correct language of heraldry is very flexible and virtually any image may be blazoned in a correct manner, for example "sky proper" might be blazoned simply ''Azure'' or ''

bleu celeste Bleu celeste (, "sky blue") is a rarely occurring and non-standard tincture in heraldry (not being one of the seven main colours or metals or the three ''staynard colours''). This tincture is sometimes also called ciel or simply celeste. I ...

'', whilst "waves of the sea" might be blazoned correctly as ''Azure, 3 bars argent'' which would provide 3 wavy thick white lines on a blue field.

Notes

{{heraldry-stub Heraldry

See also

Notes