Tyrian Purple

ARC EN CIEL
VOL. VII.
TYRIAN PURPLE

For millennia Tyrian Purple dye was one of the most prized products of the Mediterranean coastline. Symbolic of both the heavens and the very best of the material world, the people loved purple with an absolute passion.

Exuding wealth, sexuality, power, lust and fervor, purple made a statement like no other color. Purple is the color of royalty, as well as the highest vestments in priesthood and the mad desire for purple power + lux looks led the color to be one of the most legislated in history, to the extent that during some emperor's reigns (as such the case with Nero + a few ruthless 5th century Christian emperors), if you were caught in a purple dyed garment , you would surely face execution. The desire for purple was truly a deadly fashion phenomenon. (Source 1)

Tyrian Purple as a paint pigment was used as early as the 17th century BCE in the Aegean. One of the earliest examples we have that utilizes Tyrian Purple as a paint is in the fresco Saffron Gatherers (pictured below), from the Aegean Island of Santorini, ancient Thera, during the Late Bronze Age. It wasn't until half a millennia later that the Phoenicians created a splendid recipe using purple pigment as a dye for wool, cotton and silk that Tyrian purple, steeped in mythology, legend, history and mucous, became the worlds most luxurious color.

SAILS, SNAILS + SOFAS
THE INVENTION OF THE COLOR PURPLE

"Purple the sails, and so perfumèd, that
The winds were lovesick with them"

William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (II.2.192-206)

Muricidae, a large and varied taxonomic family of small to large predatory sea snails commonly known as murex snails or rock snails, has at least three varieties of dye making snails. Trunculus, brandaris, haemastoma, all make a purple-ish dye either on the side of red or blue, but only trunculus produces the rich purpura, a blue-purple indigo dye that we know as Tyrian Purple. The Phoenicians were the first people of the Mediterranean to extract it in the Lavant around 11th century BCE. (Source 2)

So how does a sea snail become purple dye? First, you have to dive and collect the snails along the rocky coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Next, crack the shell to find and expose the murex's hypobranchial gland, then slice the gland to extract the mucous and finally with exposure to sunlight spontaneous pigment formation begins - the mucous from the gland turns from yellow to green to blue to a really beautiful purple. (Source 2) Watch it in action here. Yes, purple stank. Imagine being downwind the city of Tyre (where the Tyrian Purple namesake hails) in southern Lebanon today, where large stone vats of hundreds of thousands of sea-snails were soaking in a mordant (likely stale urine) and wood ash for the pleasure of purple.

There are no shortage of stories about Cleopratra as a scheming seductress and her lifetime of massive scandals. Purple at the center of both sexuality and power was played out at a famous dinner party in 49 B.C. Julius Caesar had just won battle against Pompey, and Cleopatra organized a feast described as "luxury made mad by empty ostentation." Cleopatra had a captivating presence and was well known for her intelligence, prowess, wit and ambition. It wasn't just Cleopatra's sails that were purple - her everything was purple - her palace was lined with purple porphyry stone & her sofas covered with vivid fabric "long steeped in Tyrian dye from more than a single cauldron" and she smelled of lavender scented perfume. Julius Caesar fell for it hard + went back to Rome wearing a totally purple, sea-snail-dyed, head to toe toga. An item and color only Caesar was allowed to wear. (Source 3)

Can you guess how many sweet sea-snails it takes to make a single toga purple enough for Cleopatra + Caesar to wear? 10,000 of them. 

Want to snag the pigment from 10,000 sea-snails for yourself? 4,280.00 USD will get it for you. But be kind to your wallet and those little sea creatures and consider some of the purple painting + mixing tips from Jules at the bottom of the email.

ATTENTION-COMMANDING AEROSOLS
MONTANA 94 GIVES POWERFUL MONIKERS TO THEIR STANDOUT PURPLE SPRAYS

Spray paint industry leader and our favorite matte rainbow-in-a-can Montana 94 (and it's glossier sibling - Montana Hardcore) gives other brands a run for their money in terms of creative color names. While Tyrian Purple is neither a pigment name - or even pseudonym - for any of our stocked products, we came across these luxe purple sprays with rather royal names:

SHIVA VIOLET (MTN 94) 
The Hindu triumvirate consists of three gods who are responsible for the creation, upkeep and destruction of the world. The first two are Brahma and Vishnu, while we'd like to call your attention to the third; Shiva.

Brahma is the creator of the universe while Vishnu is the preserver of it. Shiva's role? To destroy the universe. Don't panic though - this god does so in order to re-create it!

Hindus believe Shiva's powers of destruction and recreation are used even now to destroy the illusions and imperfections of this world, paving the way for beneficial change. According to Hindu belief, this destruction is not arbitrary, but constructive. Shiva is therefore seen as the source of both good and evil and is regarded as the one who combines many contradictory elements. (Source 3)

Contradictory to any image of destruction or doom, Montana's Shiva-inspired shade is quite the calm, uplifting lilac. Think of it as a balancing, beneficial complement to another fiery, contrasting color.

SULTAN VIOLET (MTN 94)
A noble title with a mini-encyclopedia worth of historic meanings, Sultan was originally an abstract Arabic noun for strength, authority, and rulership, derived from the verbal sulṭah, meaning authority or power.

Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who claimed almost full sovereignty in practical terms (i.e., the lack of dependence on any higher ruler), albeit without claiming the overall caliphate, or to refer to a powerful governor of a province within the caliphate. (Source 4)

A rich, full-bodied and jewel-toned purple, Sultan Violet could absolutely stand alone as the authoritative purple among your personal Montana 94 palette.

PROPHET VIOLET (HARDCORE)
Prophets speak for God or a deity, or by divine inspiration. In Islam, the Prophet is Muhammad - the religion's founder. In Christian belief, Moses was the greatest of Old Testament prophets. Across a number of belief systems, a prophet is inspired teacher or leader.

The definition of Prophet, though, that most resonates with the Montana Hardcore Prophet Violet as we view it? One who foretells or predicts what is to come. Because this variation includes weather prophets, it lends itself to the high-contrast yet smoky, blue-gray purple shade called Prophet. It's like a lightning clap against an early sunset in a summer storm - that doomed and quickly darkening sky despite the daytime.

REVEREND VIOLET (MTN 94)
The Reverend is an honorific style most often placed before the names of Christian clergy and ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and church traditions. The Reverend is correctly called a style but is often and in some dictionaries called a title, form of address or title of respect. The style is also sometimes used by leaders in non-Christian religions such as Judaism and Buddhism.

Sidenote because, well, we wanted to know too! Style vs. Title? A style comes before a title - a descriptive non-title if you will. It's the Royal in Royal Highness, the Honorable in Honorable Judge. Furthermore, from the Endless in Endless Knowledge-Base (aka Wikipedia):

"The term is an anglicisation of the Latin reverendus, the style originally used in Latin documents in medieval Europe. It is the gerundive or future passive participle of the verb revereri ("to respect; to revere"), meaning "[one who is] to be revered/must be respected". The Reverend is therefore equivalent to The Honourable or The Venerable.

It is paired with a modifier or noun for some offices in some religious traditions: Anglican archbishops and most Roman Catholic bishops are usually styled The Most Reverend (reverendissimus); other Anglican bishops and some Roman Catholic bishops are styled The Right Reverend; some Reformed churches have used The Reverend Mister as a style for their clergy."

Montana 94's Reverend Violet is a deep, highly opaque and incredibly resilient shade (it's got the highest UV resistance rating MTN94 offers!). 

THE REAL REV. VIOLET
POWER OF PURPLE

Speaking of resilience, did you know there is an actual "Reverend Violet"? Yep! A champion for the homeless, Reverend Violet Little hails from Philadelphia and her resilience helped those without homes defend their right to dine with dignity:

Reverend Violet founded the Welcome Church - a church which is technically homeless itself, as Welcome has no permanent headquarters. 

Relying mostly on word-of-mouth, Reverend Violet's services are often attended by a cross-section of the city’s homeless population. Some suffer mental illness or addiction, while others lost their jobs during times of economic duress. Many are wary of city agency help because of parole violations or immigration status. Some have homes but are disenchanted with typical church services. The Welcome Church even draws teenage volunteers from the suburbs. No questions are asked, and everyone is welcome.

Once a month in any kind of weather, hundreds of people gather for communion, song, and fellowship beneath a tree on a stretch of grass on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.*

“The lines get blurred between who’s a volunteer and who isn’t,” Little says, recounting the time a homeless man offered her a sandwich. “In reality, we all have much more in common than we think.”

Little has spent years fostering connections between the city’s homeless and those who can help them, whether by networking to enlist volunteers, referring people to mental health services—or fighting legal battles. Her congregants' rights to gather on the Ben Franklin Parkway was challenged in 2012, when the city of Philly confusingly decided to ban the public sharing of food on the Parkway, a grand thoroughfare lined with institutions and symbols of art, faith and government. It’s also where an estimated 175 homeless people sleep every night.

Ever resilient, Reverend Violet banned together with a trio of motivated faith-based organizations and, with the help of the ACLU, they won a lawsuit and reversed the city's strange attempt to stifle food-sharing in what had become the Welcome Church's sacred space. The decision set a crucial judicial precedent nationwide; powered by Reverend Violet and Philly's cautionary tale, similar food-sharing bans in cities in Colorado, Texas and California have since been challenged. (Sources 4 & 5)

Inspired by Reverend Violet (and we don't just mean the Montana eggplant hue)? Volunteer for Food for Thought! One of Toledo's own hunger-fighting champions, the organization shares food every Saturday morning; lunches packed with the help of people throughout the downtown Toledo area. Individuals and groups accompany Food For Thought on (quite artfully detailed) mobile pantry routes to provide food, water or coffee, and encourage community and conversation with the people they meet along the way — sunshine or snowfall. And, never losing sight of our email's main theme, Food for Thought's logo and branding (and even their popular Jam City signature fundraiser) enthusiastically employs the use of purple! 

Love Food for Thought's vibrant violet? Get a similar shade in your own artwork by using either Raval Violet or Sultan Violet in the more matte Montana 94. Prefer a slicker sheen? The closest glossy grape is Montana Hardcore's Tube Violet. Not too confident with cans yet? Check out our Toledo class schedule - we've got a great spray paint techniques class in which you'll get to paint a galaxy (maybe in purple, eh?) slated for Saturday, June 10th!

*Traveling to Philly, art lovers? The Benjamin Franklin Parkway is touted as "America's most artistic mile", bookmarked on one end by the Philadelphia Museum of Art - the vast collections of which make it the third-largest art museum in the country. And for those of you who can't get enough of spray paint (and the mural arts for which Montana 94 is one of the world's most popular tools), check out Philly's unparalleled program. Philly Mural Arts engages in between 50 - 100 public art projects each and every year!  Rather go west? We hear there's quite the memorial celebration planned for The Purple One this weekend...

A ROYAL PAIN IN THE PAINT
TIPS FOR MIXING DIY TYRIAN PURPLE

No access to snails or science labs, and want to make the most of the primary paints you've already got rather than shelling out cash on a pre-mixed hue? Mixing purple from reds and blues seems like an easy task, right? Right? 

Actually, many attempts at mixing purples become murky and quite frankly, ugly. The good news? Your friendly Depo owner, Jules, has some helpful hints:

The answer lies in one word, “undertone.” Paints have what is called both a “mass tone” and an “undertone.” A mass tone is what it sounds like… what the paint looks like when piled in a thick mass on a palette or canvas. Undertone is what the paint looks like when spread very thinly across a surface. Some paints (mostly inorganic pigments, mined from the earth, used from the dawn of time through the industrial revolution) have the same mass tone and undertone. Newer, chemical paint pigments (concocted in a chemical lab with new advances in science after the industrial revolution through modern times) generally have a spectacularly different mass tone and undertone. The masstone or undertone of a paint generally shifts toward either a warm tone, or a cool tone. There are very few colors of paint manufactured that are truly neutral and neither warm nor cool. Artists desiring to mix beautiful purples should be aware of the tones of their reds and blues they are attempting to mix.

Cool blues (Pthalo Blue Green Shade) generally have green undertones. Warm reds (Cadmium Red Medium or Light) tend near orange. If you mix a cool blue with a warm red, you are essentially mixing green and orange, which will produce a muted brown. The brightest purple mix will come from mixing a warm blue (ultramarine) with a cool red (quinacridone red) because you won’t be co-mingling any unintended paint colors.  

Check this video from British artist Will Kemp on how to mix Purples. It sums up this discussion perfectly.

TO CONSIDER:
White is generally always added required when mixing purples. Artist quality paints are generally very pigment dense. The pigments are so close in proximity that they don’t allow much light to pass or refract through the paint, so adding white or transparent medium is required to lighten up the mix.  

Inexpensive student grade acrylics generally contain more than one pigment in a tube, as they combine a mix of inexpensive chemical pigments to replicate in mass tone a more expensive mineral (inorganic) pigment. The pigments in each tube are not “pure,” they are a mixture. Trying to mix two premixed, mixtures will always lead to unintended results. Hence the reason that many color-theory teachers and professors always tell students who are serious about painting to buy artist quality paints, as they only contain the pigments clearly labeled on the tube.

Reference List

1. Victoria Finlay, Color: A Natural History of the Palette, 2002
2. Setting the Archaeo-Chemical Record Straight Regarding Tyrian Purple Pigments and Dyes, Zvi C. Koren, of the Shenkar College of Engineering, Design, and ARt, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3zxUEQBVv8
3. BBC: Religions; Hinduism,  http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/deities/shiva.shtml
4. Sultan: Entry via Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultan
5. Information on Reverend Violet Little & the Philadelphia Food Sharing Case excerpted from both http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/ronnie_polaneczky/20120614_For_minister__it_s_about_more_than_feeding_the_homeless.html and http://www.dailygood.org/story/1021/reverend-violet-little-encore-org/

Terre Verte

ARC EN CIEL
VOL. VI.
TERRE VERTE

When you walk into our shops, you might think we're selling plants over paints - especially in Bowling Green!

While we vow to remain your favorite art supply store first and foremost (and an aspiring greenhouse only in our spare time) we do love the way all those lil' green guys make our stores - and us - feel. The Depo Peopo are not the only ones inspired by everything green, as evidenced by Pantone's recent release of their Color of the Year...

Pantone describes Greenery (Color 15-0343) as symbolic of new beginnings, expanding on "a fresh and zesty yellow-green shade that evokes the first days of spring when nature’s greens revive, restore and renew. Illustrative of flourishing foliage and the lushness of the great outdoors, the fortifying attributes of Greenery signals consumers to take a deep breath, oxygenate and reinvigorate.

Greenery is nature’s neutral. The more submerged people are in modern life, the greater their innate craving to immerse themselves in the physical beauty and inherent unity of the natural world. This shift is reflected by the proliferation of all things expressive of Greenery in daily lives through urban planning, architecture, lifestyle and design choices globally. A constant on the periphery, Greenery is now being pulled to the forefront - it is an omnipresent hue around the world.

A life-affirming shade, Greenery is also emblematic of the pursuit of personal passions and vitality."

While Greenery doesn't exist as an exact, named shade or pigment, we've scoured our inventory to bring you some of our favorite greens; those that bring to mind secret gardens, spring peeking in, tree-canopied hikes, cherished houseplants, carefully curated conservatories, and grassy plains as far as the eye can see.

UNDER THE SKIN
GREEN IN UNDERPAINTING

Terre verte (or green earth) and related tones have been used as a painting base for ages. Terre verte had been noted as used a tad less frequently than the other earth pigments due to its relative scarcity. The earthy green pigment came from two clay minerals, celadonite and glauconite, which occur naturally all over the world. These have a complex silicate structure containing aluminium, iron, magnesium and potassium ions, which when mixed together in perfect harmony, produces a lovely dull green, ideal for underpainting European flesh. (Source 2)

Underpainting, or the initial layer of paint applied to a ground, serves as a base for all other colors to follow. Most often monochromatic, underpaintings guide the color values to later be used in a painting. While there are several types of underpainting, such as grisaille, veneda, verdaccio, and morellone, today we’re zeroing in on verdaccio.

Verdaccio is the Italian term given for a mixture of black, white, and yellow pigments that result in a soft, greenish brown color. Verdaccio’s most popular use is to bring light and life to European fleshtones. This method can be traced back to the early Renaissance, when the artists of Italy would combine Mars Black and Yellow Ochre to efficiently establish shadows in the fleshtones in their fresco paintings.which originates from the Italian fresco painters of the early Renaissance. One of the most well-known evidences of this method can be seen at the Sistine Chapel, where Michaelangelo left architectural features in pure Verdaccio, but painted over the soft, greenish-gray for skintones and other details.

If you've ever wondered why the faces in an old painting have a greenish cast, it may not have been intended by the artist, nor had it perhaps always been that way. It may be that the thin, pinky-orange skin tone layer applied over top has faded over time - a symptom of age or, sometimes, a more fugitive pigment having been chosen before time or technology could appraise the artist to what his or her work would look like entering the next century. If the underpainting is showing through, that painting just might need a conservator to the rescue! (Source 3)

EASY-ISH WAY OUT
TERRE VERTE, CHROMIUM OXIDE + MORE

Modern paint companies make underpainting a bit more of a breeze. Ready-mixed greens can easily balance out the pink tones in Caucasian skin, and rather than mixing black and an ochre try your own simpler Verdaccio techniques using Terra Verte or a mixture of Chromium Oxide Green and Mars Black. 

About these colors plus a few others...

TERRE VERTE
From Williamsburg, about their oil paint variation... "Green Earth is known by an assortment of names such as Stone Green, Verdetta, and Celadonite. Other names refer to the source of the native iron / magnesium colored clay, such as Bohemian, a high quality grade of pure green hue. It has been popular for centuries with many cultures. Native Americans also were fond of using Green Earth as a colorant. Since Medieval times it has been used as an underpainting color for flesh tones in portraits."

CHROMIUM OXIDE GREEN DARK
Golden fans loved their tried and true original Chromium Oxide Green so much that the company released a darker variation in early 2010. From the company upon it's release, "This new green is a darker and cooler version of the well known, very useful and long used green pigment. It fills a color space somewhere between Jenkins Green and Sap Green Hue, with very good opacity, and adds to a relatively small line up of inorganic greens. It is not quite as opaque as our standard Chromium Oxide Green, which is rated 1. It dries to a satin like finish."

FRENCH TERRE VERTE
"When comparing the French Terre Verte to the Italian Terre Verte, the first difference is that the Italian version is much more yellow and overall warmer. In locating a comparable color, French Terre Verte has an unexpected similarity to Cobalt Green. Its transparency, matte quality and subdued strength is a guarantee that this comparison only be made in hue. They both have similar pine tree color qualities. The transparency of Terre Verte in general is what makes this color so valuable in different palettes. It does lend itself to a landscape palette but more importantly, due to its transparent nature is very useful in imparting subtle tones to a portrait palette," notes Williamsburg. And... since the science nerd in all of us is just dying to know, we should share that they also explained the pigment as a "natural ferrous silicate containing magnesium and aluminum potassium silicates is a transparent bluish green that exhibits a slate like grit."

(Digging all these gritty details from Williamsburg and their parent company, Golden? While we didn't find a particular green to highlight in this bunch, if you love extensive color detail as much as we love Terre Verte you should check out this article on the company's other excellent earthtone selections!)

UNDERPENCILING?
TRANSITIONING PAINTING TECHNIQUES TO TODAY'S MEDIUMS

Green underpainting isn't limited merely to painters. Try utilizing Verdaccio techniques with colored pencil! One great example to check out next time you're in our shop is the cover art for the Strathmore 400 Series Colored Pencil pad. The original work was created by Brian Scott, a UK based artist who first tried oils and acrylics but didn’t feel successful with them. Eventually finding colored pencils as his niche, the artist like that pencils are much tidier and require less space.

Where does Verdaccio come in? Well, from Strathmore we learned, "Once he (Brian Scott) started to use colored pencil, he was challenged to make his pencil work look more like an oil painting rather than a traditional drawing..." Check out what appears to be an incredibly clear example of green (our newest not-a-word word) underpenciling - the skin and undereye area of the subject in Brian's work.

Get the look in your own work with Faber-Castell's Polychromos pencils. We recommend trying their Chromium Oxide Green, Permanent Green Olive, and Olive Green Yellowish shades and then choosing a favorite based on your own style and artwork subject.

OLIVE, YOU LOVE, WE ALL LOVE GREEN
CHECK OUT THESE PRODUCTS TOO! 

We love green across the medium lines. Here are some inks we're going gaga for...

Noodler's Army Green Ink: If you love reading about color - especially the history behind how and why any given art supply company chooses the colors and names that they do - you could spend a lil' time (like... a week-ish... or something...) sifting through all the fascinating details behind Noodler's inks. We love Army Green for it's yellowish green hue reminiscent of fatigues, but found a cool Toledo-based tidbit when doing our research... The company's GI Green color, part of their V-Mail (victory mail) series, was originally based on the color of Willy's Jeeps! Sorry to say it's now reformulated and less true to the historic accuracy of the “government issue green”, but it's Noodler's hope that this new color is easier to use in modern applications. Another reason? This ink has a huge British following, and the new color recipe produces a shade reminiscent of British racing green (though still in line with certain darker green jungle and hedgerow campaign uniforms). (Source 4)

FW Ink's Olive Green: Check out that lovely, quite opaque olive color of the FW Ink droplets above. This product is liquid acrylic and thus has excellent permanence ratings and adheres to many surfaces - paper, wood, ceramics, leather and more. You might even try a wash of it on your next canvas as an underpainting, eh?

PLANTS IN PASTEL
SOFT GREENS GO VIBRANT

Oooh ooh ooh, we just love plants in pastel. Don't you?

(Before we go on... can we just pause to check out how much pastel pops on this black velour paper, available in our BG shop? It's as fun as velvet Elvis, but less "All Shook Up" and more all succulents!)

Want to color in your own outdoor scene, but don't know where to start? Mary Jane Erard is the Depo's premiere pastel teacher, and much of her work centers on the lovely green stems popping out of the ground. Whether it's lush lavender fields or tempting tulips, much of what's green can be brought to life through pastel.

Typically Mary Jane keeps her teaching in the classroom, but this summer she'll take pastels to the park! The new Middlegrounds Metropark, which opened just last fall, is quickly becoming the go-to happy place for all of us downtown and now? The go-to art place too!

Located just a quick 15 minute walk from our St. Clair shop, Middlegrounds includes sparkling river frontage and 28 acres of greenspace including over a mile of walking and bike paths that meander along the Maumee. Sound like the perfect place to play with pastels? We thought so! 

So... why not sign up for Plein Air (in soft OR oil pastels) right down at Middlegrounds?

GO GREEN
PAINTING IN THE WILD

We love the use of greens of all kinds in the Toy Tableaux oil paintings by Aaron Pickens, on display now through April 30th in our BG shop.

Admiring his work and would love to paint with Aaron? Well, we've got another avenue to get y'all out into the big, green open! Take a Plein Air Painting class led by the artist in BG this summer. They'll be offered the second Friday in June, July, and August. You can sign up for just one at $50 each, or save $15 by committing to the full summer (3 classes) at $135. Details here, and stay tuned in the coming weeks for another email detailing even more fun outdoor workshop plans!

(Both the image above and below are original works by Aaron. Check out the dinos on top on display in our shop right now!)

PAINT PLANTS
KATI KLEIMOLA'S UPCOMING EXHIBIT + CLASSES

One exhibit comes down and another arises. Once Aaron's Toy Tableaux show is de-installed, we'll be introducing the fab florals by painter Kati Kleimola for the months of May & June in BG.

Along with her solo show, Kati will be teaching a handful of classes for us. The first of those listed is for little hands in particular! Kati will lead kiddos ages 7-12 through creating with color - green among it! The image above is our promo for Mixed Media Flowers class. During the two-hour class, students will create a beautiful floral painting with basic flower shapes, adding oil pastels, watercolor, acrylic paint and cut paper. All supplies are included in your student's registration.  

With limited space in this super fun course, we advise you sign your little artist up today! And stay tuned - Kati's painting class for adults will be listed super soon.

Check our sneak peek image for Kati's exhibit below. After that? Get outta your computer and wander off to explore that great, (slowly but surely becoming) green earth!

Reference List

1. Image Source for Sistine Chapel: Dennis Jarvis via Flickr.
2. A History of Pigment Use in Western Art Part 1, Originally titled "A Colour Chemist's History of Western Art", published in Review of Progress in Coloration, Millennium Issue, Vol. 29, 1999, pp 43-64, Society of Dyers and Colourists, Bradford, UK, http://www.pcimag.com/articles/86476-a-history-of-pigment-use-in-western-art-part-1
3. Why Are Some Icons and Gothic Faces Green?, The Way of Beauty, David Clayton, Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, http://thewayofbeauty.org/2012/01/why-are-some-icons-and-gothic-faces-green/
4. Source for Noodler’s Ink Info: http://noodlersink.com/whats-new/reformulated-gi-green/
5. Image source for Middlegrounds Metropark: https://metroparkstoledo.com/explore-your-parks/middlegrounds

Crimson + Carmine

The color of blood and fire, illustrative of vitality, heat and erotic love, red is one of the oldest and most emotive colors in our short history of language and representation. While colors have held symbolic meaning in many cultures, none have had the breadth and complexion of the color red. 

Red represents events and emotions at the very core of the human condition, danger and courage, heat and passion, revolution and war, evil, violence, sin and shame, wealth and royalty, death, and of course, life itself. For artists, finding a fierce red today is as easy as going to your local art supply store (we're open seven days a week for all of your crimson desires), but for thousands of years the best red pigment was the ochre of the first early human, which was a muddied and dull attempt at the blistering, vivid, seductive reds of mother nature herself. 

Red changed the world a bit during the 16th century. In 1519 Spanish Conquistadors discovered the rich, saturated, luminous South American red that Europeans had been yearning for since Roman times, Dactylopius coccus's cochineal crimson.

Judith with the Head of Holofernes, 1530
Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Oil on linden

TRUE BLOOD
COLOR ME COCHINEAL

Carmine is a natural organic dyestuff made from the dried and pulverized bodies of the female cochineal insect, Dactylopius coccus, of Mexico and in Central and South America. Because carmine is a dye (a thin, water-soluble staining material with no “body” of it’s own), it must be chemically bonded to clay, salt, or some other insoluble material to be used as a paint pigment through a process known as laking, technology pioneered by the early Egyptians. There are several paint colors originally produced through the laking process, the most famous of which are carmine, madder, and indigo.

Cochineal is an ancient Inca & Aztec scale insect, ovoid shaped and no larger than a child's pinky fingernail (if that) and is still cultivated today. The cochineal thrive on the juicy flesh of prickly pear cacti, literally eating them alive. Female cochineal are full of carminic acid which is a really handy repellent, their own special chemical weapon against predators and a really lovely crimson dye (Source 1).

There are a few other notable dye producing critters in the same super-family as the cochineal, in particular lac & kermes. Examples of dye from lac and kermes date back to at least 714 B.C.E. in the Middle East (Source 2). In the first century AD Pliny the Elder of Rome listed "the red, that of the kermes" to be among the first "fabrics which rival the color of flowers," (Natural History 22), but cochineal came onto the scene with the juiciest crimson yet, it yielded the most colorant and had a stronger tinctorial strength—domestication and breeding further improved the cochineal extraction process (Source 3).

PRICKLY PLANTATION
THE HARVEST

The cochineal farmer's job is a delicate balance, keeping the cacti alive, but allowing the cochineal to feast happily upon their flesh, because if left to their own devices, cochineal will eat an entire cacti to its death. The farmer has to time the cochineal harvest just right, striking harmony between life and death.

North of Chile, on a modern cochineal plantation, about 45,000 prickly pear plants per hectare are in nice neat rows. Male cochineal bugs fly around rows and rows of cacti in a fertilizing frenzy, living for only a few days. Meanwhile, the ladies are literally holding all the fun. That magical, deep crimson comes from within. The female bugs hang out on the pads of the cacti, become pregnant, they fatten up off of the cactus' flesh & moisture, and then at just the right time, about 14 human workers begin the harvest. Utilizing an air compressor, the farm workers collect the cochineal, shoot them into buckets, and dry them in ovens before pulverizing them into dreamy crimson sludge (Source 1).

"The nopal plant that is grown in America and produces grana [insect dye]." Reports on the History, Organization, and Status of Various Catholic Dioceses of New Spain and Peru (1620-49) fol. 85.

CONQUEST FOR COCHINEAL
NEW WORLD RED

Dried cochineal bugs came from the New World to Europe in the mid 1500s. After gold & silver, cochineal was the third most valuable import. The first shipment of 60 metric tons of brown dried bodies arrived in Spain in 1557 in what came to be known as the “cochineal fleet.” Over the next the next quarter century South American exported around 4,000 metric tons of dried cochineal, that’s trillions of those lil’ buggas annually.

Cochineal was used as a dye, paint, cosmetic and medicine. When Philip II of Spain was sick he used a concoction of ground up cochineal bugs and vinegar served up in a silver spoon to cure his ails (Source 1). New widespread availability of cochineal made it accessible for people to color the town red. Textiles for the wealthy, royal and papal, military uniforms, cosmetics, paints, and medicine all utilized this new world red. Cochineal was brought into the powder rooms of young Spanish and French women as well as the pallets of artists.

Today it is one of the world's safest colorants. Cochineal, natural red 4, is still used as a dye in cosmetics and food. If you've ever worn a red-hued lipstick, ordered a (pre 2012) strawberry frappuccino from Starbucks (since 2012 they have ditched our lovely bug-based dye friends), had a can of soup for lunch, or enjoyed a processed ham sandwich, you’ve likely consumed that tiny bug, cochineal. 

MODERN CRIMSON
NOW LIGHTFAST + PERMANENT

According to most contemporary artists, carmine is only legitimate as a food coloring, as exposure to the sunlight for three months, bleaches the pigment completely. In Cranach's Judith with the Head of Holofernes, "the crimson glaze on the bloody stub of Holofernes’s neck is somewhat abraded and has probably faded" (Source 5).

Cochineal, kermes, madder and other lake pigments are still employed today in cosmetics such as lipstick and nail varnish, but the red pigment is no longer used in painting because of its poor light fastness, as lakes can be fugitive.

Madder is a lake derived from the extract of the madder plant's root (rubia tintorum) which the principle coloring substance is alizarin. It is one of the most stable natural pigments & was most widely used in the 18th and 19th century, though never as extensively as the ruby-like lakes made from cochineal (Source 6).

Chemists began to investigate natural organic products with the aim of producing a synthetic and more permanent madder. Two Parisian chemists, Colin and Robiquet, isolated a red substance from madder & named it alizarin (Source 7). A German team of scientists, Adolf Bayer (1835-1917), Carl Graebe (1841-1927) and Carl Lieberman (1842-1914) patented a method for alizarin's synthesis in December 1868. Industrial production of the synthetic madder alizarin began in Germany soon afterwards and caused the total collapse of the natural madder industry throughout Europe (Source 7).

At the Depo have have a few options for a true lightfast replacement for Alizarin Crimson in oils. Williamsburg and Gamblin make an excellent lightfastness rated Permanent Crimson made from the synthetic pigment, Anthraquinone. Williamburg's Permanent Crimson is an absolutely permanent, lightfast substitute for Alizarin Crimson. Not at all electric or synthetic looking - more down to earth than quinacridones. Exquisitely clean in mixing. Gamblin's Alizarin Permanent is a cool, slightly bluish red with smoky glaze. 

Golden Acrylic's modern version of historical Alizarin Crimson is a mix of quinacridone and phthalo to make an exceptionally lightfast and strong tinting paint, with a deep reddish brown undertone like the historical color.

Reference List

1. Victoria Finlay, Color: A Natural History of the Palette, 2002
2. https://erikafranz.wordpress.com/tag/cochineal/
3. Lana Phipps, Cochineal Red: The Art History of a Color, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010
4. Amy Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red Empire, Espionage, an d the Quest for the Color of Desire, 2009
5. http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/436038
6. http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/indiv/overview/madder.html
7. Originally titled "A Colour Chemist's History of Western Art", published in Review of Progress in Coloration, Millennium Issue, Vol. 29, 1999, pp 43-64, Society of Dyers and Colourists, Bradford, UK. http://www.pcimag.com/articles/83955-a-history-of-pigment-use-in-western-art-part-2