History of Known Pigments and Their Chemical Makeup. 77 AD to Present
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History of known pigments and their chemical makeup. 77 AD to present. maroon. According to Maximillian Toch, Blakelock used [A note to readers: this site is only for personal use, as it is not Antwerp Blue and Burnt Sienna for his dark glazes. It is bibliographized. Therefore, please do not attempt to publish it: it is here as however a fairly useless pigment as Chinese or Prussian Blue a courtesy to other painters who are interested in this material.] give the same, but stronger results. From http://www.labthink.com/paint.htm ARTIFICIAL BARIUM SULPHATE ALIZARIN In France this pigment is known as Blanc Fixe, meaning permanent white. It has even less covering power than zinc (Also known as Alizarin Crimson in modern pigments). white, which makes it a very translucent pigment, best used Same as Madder, except that it was made from the as an extender or as a glazing medium. European Madder root. Since the 1850s (approximately) it has been made synthetically with an identical chemical ASBESTINE composition to Madder but with a superior clear tone and lightfastness. By manipulating these chemicals, a range of A course shredded material which is used in pigments to shades has been made from Scarlet to Ruby. All alizarin lake prevent settling or hardening. colors (see crimson lake) are permanent to light and to the gaseous atmospheres of urban areas. However, when mixed with Ochre, Sienna and Umber, they lose their permanence. ASPHALTUM and when mixed with blacks or oxides, its permanence is not affected at all. Excellant as a glazing color over a dry (Bitumen). It's very tempting to use asphaltum in surface. According to Maximillian Toch, " the medium underpainting as it allows for a sketchy brushstroke, not shade of Madder Lake shows no light action after one year unlike that which is possible with graphite. It is a complete to the sun under glass". Purple madder, is a different disaster in traditional uses, and can be extremely damaging pigment altogether, in that it is permanent to diffused as an underpaint to the more stable pigments painted upon indoor light, but not to ultra-violet light, and should it. However, the strange, rough quality of the material is therefore never be exposed sunlight. quite interesting for more contemporary uses, and is worth experimenting with. It is however a poor dryer, Pulverized ALUMINA HYDRATE asphalt is heated in hot oil as a part of its preparation, therefore it is obviously soluble in oils, but historically boiled linseed oil would be added to improve its drying When ground in a low acid linseed oil, this pigment is as abilities. It also has a tendency to soften in higher transparent as glass, and has the least hiding power of any temperatures, adding to its instability as a traditional pigments. It therefore reduces the opacity of all other pigment. This opens it up to experimentation in pigments, and becomes inert when mixed with them. It contemporary uses; it has a tendency to soften in higher does however add to the yellowing of pigments over time, as temperatures, causing deep cracks in the top layers of paint, it takes an enormous quantity of oil to reduce it to a paste. the asphaltum thus pressing through. Rembrandt used it for Therefore, this pigment is extremely valuable when used for a glaze, where it caused no damage at all, thus opening it up glazing techniques, and traditionally, with a more to uses over other treatments/pigments. It requires 150% golden/yellow array of colors to mask the yellowing quality. oil, making it an exceedingly fat paint, and is traditionally This can also be used to advantage when creating a glaze advised against for every traditional technique including meant to yellow a painting for the purpose of imparting age fresco. Consider the modern use of /asphalt: there may be to it. possiblities available in many of the paving/industrial materials used which are not "painting" materials. ANTWERP BLUE Remember during all experimentation however, that the stability of the material over time might be limited, and use Usually a Prussian Blue containing 25% or more of this toward the advantage of the work, rather than the Alumina Hydrate, making it a translucent blue. When disadvantage. mixed with Titanium or Zinc oxides, it makes a sky-blue which a permanent to light. As a glazing medium, when AUREOLIN mixed wtih Burnt Sienna, it creates a translucent dark History of Known Pigments and Their Chemical Makeup — 77 AD to present 1 A nitrite of cobalt and potassium, which makes a tranparent injured. To prepare a color from it, lump azurite is ground yellow color which is permanent to light. When used with into a powder, and sieved. Coarsely ground azurite produces sufficient oil or coated with varnish, it has the added quality dark blue, and fine grinding produces a lighter tone; of being unaffected by gaseous atmosphere, as well. It is however if not ground fine enough, it is too sandy and gritty used best as a glazing color as it has poor coverage, and yet is to be used as a pigment. The medieval system included fairly useless as the lighter cadmium yellows give the same washing it to remove any mud and then separating the results. different grains by some process of levigation. If plain water is used it is a slow, laborious process, so they used solutions AZURE BLUE of soap, gum and lye. The Japanese produce three grades: coarse, medium and fine, thus all three have different tones to them. A fourteenth century text tells us that "There are According to history, this name would mean "blue blue". some confounded tricksters who put sand into blue However, in manufactured pigments it is a tone similar to deliberately to increase the weight (for sales) and it is the Cerulean blue, and is usually a mixture of Prussian or ruin and destruction of the color." Merchants would also Ultramarine blue with Zinc white. It is permanent to both put all the best blue at the top of the bag, and the poorer light and air. quality at the bottom. When azurite is washed, the very fine particles are rather pale, greenish sky-blue, and not much AZURITE & BLUE VERDITER admired for painting. Its fineness was suitable to the pen, and was chiefly used for the purpose of putting pen Also mountain blue, lapis armenius, azurium citramarinum flourishes of blue around large letters (usually in red) in (as opposed to azurium ultrmarinum), and in Pliny's time books. There was another blue still better for this purpose; called "Armenian stone" when Armenia and Spain were the turnsole, often used in conjunction with fine azurite, and chief sources of supply. Latin borrowed a Persian word for the palest qualities of azurites seem not to have been in any blue, lajoard, which in the form of lazurium became great demand. To some extent they were used for modeling azurium, and gave us our word azure. (This word probably up the darker qualities in painting, so as to produce an effect meant the Persian mineral, lapis lazuli, but it came to mean in several values of blue without having to dilute the dark the color blue in general.) It is composed of basic carbonite blues with white. Dark azurite blues in tempera on walls of copper, found in many parts of the world in the upper could be modeled up simply by roughening the surface with oxidized portions of copper ore deposits (also refer to blue a stick of wood. Scratches on the dark blue looked light, but copper pigments to cross reference). Azurite mineral is this was not very long lasting. The best grades of azurite for usually associated in nature with malachite, the green basic painting were coarse: not sandy, but so course that is was carbonate of copper that is far more abundant. According to quite laborious to lay them on, especially in egg tempera. Lucas (1962), azurite may have been employed as a paint For this reason size was often used as a binder to hold them pigment as early as the fourth dynasty in Egypt, but was not firmly in place. (Size is more easily affected by protracted widely used then nor in the classical world because of the dampness or by washing than egg tempera, and blues in wall synthetic copper pigment, Egyptian blue (usually all paintings have therefore sometimes perished through the synthetics were less expensive and more abundant). Azurite destruction of their binder where colors in tempera have was the most important blue pigment in European painting stood.) It was necessary to apply several coats of azurite to throughout the middle ages and Renaissance by contrast, produce a solid blue, but the result was quite beautiful. The despite the more exotic and costly ultramarine having actual thickness of the crust of blue added to the richness of received greater acclaim. Azurite was commonly used as an the effect, and each tiny grain of the powdered crystalline underpaint to ultramarine as well. It was also the most mineral sparkled like a minute sapphire, especially before it important blue pigment in the paintings of the far east, used was varnished. The open texture of a coat of azurite blue has widely in the wall paintings of the Sung and Ming dynasties often been its undoing on panels; the varnish sinks into it in China. It was also used in Japan, especially on paintings and surrounds the particles of blue. As the varnish yellows of the Ukiyo-e school, and is still used today. To a limited and darkens, the power of the azurite to reflect blue light is extent it was used by the pre-Columbian Indians of the destroyed : strangled by the varnish.