I learned that blue in Europe had to be obtain from expensive stones, so it wasn't as widely use.

I've taken an interest in Japanese art and I see the colour blue (and green) used in most paintings. Did they use a different pigment unknown to Europeans, or was lapis lazuli more accessible?

I only found this on the internet with a quick search but I'm unable to obtain any satisfactory information from the results.

EDIT: Is it likely that they used the same pigment diluted to give different ranges of colour ?