In Part 1 of A History of Colours in Art we looked at the origins of colour manufacture and in particluar the development of earth colours pigments, as well as red and white.
BLUE
In around 4000 BCE, the Ancient Egyptians began a significant transformation in colour manufacture and synthesis. They sought to generate a more vivid and varied palette of colours with which to paint, and were particularly enamoured with the semi-precious blue stone - lapis lazuli - which they imported from Afghanistan at great expense to be used in fine jewellery, and headdresses.
Because of blue’s rarity in nature (it is not found in the soil) early mankind had no access to blue pigment. The Ancient Egyptians, however, changed that. As well as sourcing pigments from minerals like iron, copper, and cobalt, they experimented with mixing minerals and applying heat to create a completely new hue. In around 2200 BCE they combined ground limestone with sand and another copper-containing mineral (azurite or malachite) to create their own light blue pigment, know as Egyptian blue (or cuprorivaite)…and propelled the evolution of colour in art.
They used this neoteric colour to decorate the tombs of the pharaohs, as well as to paint statues and ceramics, and it was held in such high regard that it was used for thousands of years, throughout the Roman Empire, and right up until 395 AD. At that time, it then temporarily disappeared from cultural use following the decline of the empire, and as new methods of colour manufacture began.
Fast forward several hundred years and blue pigments were once more in demand, and lapis lazuli resumed its journey to reign supreme as the one ‘true blue’ pigment. Even though the Ancient Egyptians had previously failed to successfully extract the pigment themselves, there is evidence of lapis lazuli having been used in 6th century Bamiyan Buddhist paintings, 10th and 11th century Chinese paintings, 11th and 12th century Indian murals, and 12th century Anglo-Saxon and Norman illuminated manuscripts. And in the 14th and 15th centuries, the pigment was imported into Europe by Italian traders and was renamed ultramarine (meaning “beyond the sea”).
Artist Cennino Cenneni detailed the lengthy purification and extraction process of preparing ultramarine pigment in his book Il Libro Dell’Arte (1821), and described ultramarine as a “glorious, lovely and absolutely perfect pigment beyond all the pigments”.
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The way in which ultramarine was used was dictated by how precious it was. Its cost required it to be used sparingly, and so it was often reserved for more illustrious works, such as to colour the robes in depictions of the Virgin Mary, and other divine iconography. It is said, however, that Dutch Baroque painter Johannes Vermeer refused to ever paint without it, subsequently causing his family to fall into debt to finance his obsession. In his 1665 painting Girl with a Pearl Earring his use of ultramarine is prevalent in her headscarf (making a bold punctuation in the composition, usually achieved by the use of vivid red hues), and touches can also been seen in the shadow of her jacket and in the pink of her cheeks.
In the 18th century, greater experimentation in colour making was spurred on by the opening of trade routes and subsequent advances in technology and science, and led to the first chemically synthesised colour being created. In 1704, a pigment known as Prussian Blue was accidentally created by German colour maker Johan Diesbach, when he was experimenting with the oxidation of iron. The potash he was mixing with ferric sulphate and dried cochineal was contaminated with animal oil and resulted in an unexpected intense blue colour - instead of the intended red. Its deep blue tint provided an impressive alternative to the expensive and scarce ultramarine pigment.
This more readily available and lower cost deep blue pigment meant that a rich blue hue became more accessible and was therefore no longer the reserve of religious or monarchical artwork. Prussian Blue’s use spread throughout Europe, and then further afield to Japan where, in 1831, artist Katsushika Hokusai used it in his woodblock painting The Great Wave Off Kanagawa.
But Prussian blue wasn’t the only pigment making waves. The demand for the colour was so great that it sparked a synthetic revolution and, in the early 1800s, the London Royal College of Art (shortly followed by The French Government’s Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale) even offered a prize to anyone who could create a new synthetic version. This was finally achieved by French chemist Jean-Baptists Guimet, in 1828, when he combined clay, charcoal, quartz, soda, and sulphur through a heating process to produce French ultramarine.
This was a turning point in the production of paint pigment and, in 1834, renowned English Romantic painter J. M. W. Turner became the first accredited artist to use French ultramarine. By the end of the 1800s, French ultramarine had replaced lapis lazuli-sourced-ultramarine as the standard pigment in the art world, later leading to great artists like Claude Monet making use of the pigment in his 1906 masterpiece Water Lilies.
GREEN
Perhaps the oldest known green pigments are derived from malachite, a basic copper carbonate mineral. The pigment has been seen in Ancient Egyptian tomb paintings, and often in paintings depicting one of the most important Egyptian deities, Osiris, in which his skin was painted bright green (wadj).
Despite the abundance of malachite, the pigment did not attain popularity with European artists until the 15th and 16th centuries, the reason for which has been posited as being its low refractive index - meaning that the pigment worked better in tempura mediums than in the oil mediums favoured by European painters.
It was advancements in chemistry and the isolation of new elements in the latter part of the 18th century that led to the introduction of new green pigments, such as emerald green, and viridian.
Emerald green was created in 1814 by combining copper verdigris with vinegar and white arsenic, and was purported to be more lightfast and brilliant than any other copper green. It wasn’t until 1822 that the toxicity of the pigment’s ingredients (namely, arsenic) were disclosed but, despite this, it continued to be produced and was hugely desirable. Sadly, this controversial pigment led to a great many fatalities, and it has been hypothesised that Claude Monet’s use of Emerald green in his paintings may even have given rise to his sight-loss in later life.
Thankfully, other far less toxic green pigments were soon to be created. Following on from the discovery of the essential trace mineral chromium, in 1838, French colour maker Pannetier produced the first preparation of viridian green. Pannetier, and his successor Binet, kept the exact recipe under wraps and produced the pigment themselves for more than 20 years, until painter and draughtsman Jean Adrien Guignet developed and patented a far less expensive method for its manufacture.
The reduction in cost greatly increased viridian’s popularity and its excellent permanence and no toxicity meant that it soon became a favoured green hue amongst Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters, replacing all other greens.
Georges Seurat extensively used viridian in his renowned painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884 -1886), beautifully capturing the variety of greens in the natural elements of the river bank, leaves and trees.
Interestingly, it has been found that viridian pigment produced at the start of the 1900s contains a by-product not found in modern manufacture. Being able to make a distinction between the contemporary and traditional pigment samples has proved an important finding with regards to artwork analysis, and now plays a vital role in the authentication of masterpieces in contemporary times.
BLACK
Leonardo da Vinci is said to have declared “A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light”.
Because of the pervasive nature of darkness, it stands to reason that the quest to find the blackest black has been omnipresent in the history of colour in art.
The first black pigment to be used was carbon black by palaeolithic artists, who combined ground charcoal (burnt wood) with water or animal fat and applied it to cave walls, but a denser black pigment was eventually created by using the carbon residue from burning animal bones.
This was known, unsurprisingly, as bone black, and its dark blue-black hue has been a mainstay in art history the world over. The deep black pigment can be found in the cave paintings of prehistoric times, as well as in Ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art, all the way through European medieval, Renaissance, modern art, to current day.
In 7th century China, it was believed that black ink alone should be capable of expressing an accomplished artist’s vision, creating values and strength by diluting and altering the pressure of the brushstroke. Colour was considered vulgar in the Tang dynasty, and monochromatic Chinese ink paintings were held in the highest regard. Dating back to the 23rd century BCE, it is thought that the pigment was made from a mixture of lampblack, carbon black, and bone black pigment ground together with animal hide glue.
The Impressionists argued that black didn’t exist in nature, choosing instead to use a blend of blues, reds, and greens to generate the appearance of shadows etc, however the bolder embodiment of the pigment remained highly popular throughout many other movements.
In 1930, Dutch painter Piet Mondrian painted Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow which is a largely white painting, intersected by bold black lines, and punctuated by small planes of bright solid colour. Far from being simply an outline to the brighter colours, Mondrian considered the black lines planes of pigment in their own right, and that each colour was carefully arranged to create harmony, despite the apparent asymmetrical tension.
Perhaps the most infamous event in the pursuit of ‘blackest black’ involved contemporary British-Indian artist Anish Kapoor. In 2014, he began experimenting with Vantablack which, at the time*, was the “blackest material in the universe” - absorbing 99.8% of all light and, incredibly, making the texture and depth of any surface it was painted onto indiscernible. The substance was actually invented by UK scientists with military use in mind, but Kapoor saw artistic potential in the substance and secured the exclusive rights to its use in painting and sculpture.
British artist Stuart Semple took umbrage against the exclusionary nature of Kapoor’s contract and use of the pigment, and retaliated by developing his own black pigment Black 2.0, which he asserted was “the world’s mattest, flattest, black art material”…along with the disclaimer “this is not the blackest black in the world. It is however a better black than the blackest black in the world, as it is actually usable by artists.”
Take a look at our online gallery to see how some of today’s most popular contemporary artists make use of the rich a varied history of colour development in art in their own work.
*Vantablack has since been superseded in its hyper light-absorbing capabilities by a substance created by MIT scientists in 2019.
