Colors of the Earth, Nature, and Modern Times
As a painter and artist, color is my lifeblood. I am sure if you looked inside my soul, it would be flowing with yellow ocher, burnt umber, alizarin crimson, and ultramarine blue. The history of color is fascinating as we look at it development over time bringing us to these convenient paints in a tube that can be bought at any art store in person or online. Some pigments are of the earth and minerals dating to 11,000 BCE and beyond. Other pigments are made from found objects such as minerals, twigs, and bugs going back over 4,000 years ago. In the contemporary era we began to create modern synthetic colors. We begin to see more of these emerge around the 1700s CE.
“Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways. ” ― Oscar Wilde
Colors of the Earth
Manganese Black
In the Lascaux Cave, France, paintings dating back to the Ice Age were discovered in 1940 CE during the German occupation. The cave has gorgeous depictions of animals drawn in red, whites, greys, and blacks. Originally the black was presumed to be drawn on with charcoal (burnt wood), but in the 2000s CE, while studying a sample of pigment from the “Great Bull” image, French scientists discovered that some of the black was from manganese oxide. This pigment is created by heating rocks rich in manganese to about 1650 Fahrenheit. The use of manganese black on these early cave drawings indicates that humans have been intentionally searching for and improving upon art making techniques and materials as far back as the prehistoric periods.
Egyptian Blue
The earliest written record of this blue is in a 4th century BCE in Athens text by philosopher Theophrastos. There were three types of blue available in Greece, the finest of which came from Egypt. Egyptian blue was invented around 2200 BCE, alongside the construction of the Great Pyramids. It is created through a carefully calculated balance of calcinated limestone, sand, malachite, azurite (or bronze filings). Egyptian Blue was incredibly rare and expensive because, after calculating the correct quantities of materials, it has to be heated to between 1470 and 1650 Fahrenheit. If crafted perfectly it will cool into a blue, opaque, crystal. The process is not yet complete. Next artists would grind the blue materials into powder and mix it with a binder such as egg white, glue, or acacia gum. Although it is made from a base of limestone, because of the complicated process, it is known as the oldest synthetic pigment.
Yellow Ocher
“Ocher” is derived from a Greek word meaning “Pale Yellow”. Made popular on pottery during Ancient Greece, the pigment is actually plentiful and found worldwide. Yellow ochre is made from a specific type of iron-rich soil that creates the deep yellow and orange colors. Famous origins of yellow ochre are Australia, modern-day Turkey, the Greek Islands, Athens, and Southern France. Because of its use as a slip on pottery, Romans in Athens called yellow ochre “Attic sil”, describing it as a type of slime.
Color from the Living
Tyrian Purple
A dye used as early as the Ancient Phoenicians in 1570 BCE in the Western world, Tyrian Purple was created from the mucus excretions of the murex sea snail. It took more than 250,000 snails to create just one ounce of dye, which made Tyrian purple a very expensive and highly coveted color. It was often worn by rulers like Cleopatra and Julius Cesar and became known as the color for royalty over the centuries. A close relative of the murex sea snail, known as purpura, is found in along the coast of Mesoamerica. The village of Tehuantepec, in Oaxaca State in Mexico, Mixtec women traditionally wore purple striped skirts dyed by allowing the snails to move across the white cotton. The women would return snails to the unharmed sea when they were done.