In the Land of Forgotten Colors on the Trail of Cranach, Dürer and Stradivari: Chemist Georg Kremer Studies and Reproduces the Paints Used by the Old Masters
PRINTING INKS AND COLORS In the land of forgotten colors On the trail of Cranach, Dürer and Stradivari: chemist Georg Kremer studies and reproduces the paints used by the old masters. 34 print process 22/03 TEXT: HELGE BENDL, PHOTOS: KURT HENSELER magician’s wares: dragon’s blood, their brushes in pigments; artists, archi- While Kremer’s wife stokes up the dried cuttlefish ink, red fermented tects and even violin-makers today prefer ceramic woodstove in the living room (lab A rice, charred ivory, curcuma pow- these rediscovered natural materials to workers later process the soot from the der, gallnuts, buckthorn bark and walnut mass-produced industrial paints. beechwood fire into bistre, an historical shells, plus bismuth, ink stone, Russian In the mid-Eighties, Kremer purchased pigment previously used to copy bibles), jade, Spanish ocher, rock crystal and dried the old mill at the southwestern tip of Georg Kremer describes his never-end- cochineal insects, as well as an extract from Bavaria. Today, the company and its mul- ing search for historical formulations, for a purple dye murex that costs 2,000 euros ti-million sales support not only Kremer’s natural substances old and new: “Just as a gram. The most valuable substances are family, but also some thirty employees. words have gone out of use in the course of more precious than gold. An alchemist in Although shops have been opened in time, pigments have also been forgotten. the heart of Bavaria, inhabiting an historic Munich, Stuttgart and New York, Kremer Lukas Cranach even had his own apothe- mill in the village of Aichstetten? continues to coordinate his worldwide cary and sold a variety of substances, mix- Georg Kremer laughs at the idea.
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