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

Flake White

ARC EN CIEL
VOL. IV.
FLAKE WHITE

Flake White is a seductive mistress, a toxic yet stunning white pigment derived almost exclusively from lead, that is known for creating the illusion of “warmth” in flesh tones despite it’s chilly name. Flake White as a pigment and “color” is only available in oil paint, so it may be unfamiliar to those working primarily in other painting and drawing media.

As a white paint, it is incredibly versatile and mixes well with every other color in on a painter’s palette due to its low tinting strength. “Its importance has been immeasurable, and is the only material that has been consistently used from ancient times to the present. Since white in painting is the equivalent of white in nature, it has been essential to every aspect of painting: from flesh to skies, and so on” (Source 1).

The most basic principal of seeing color is how light is reflected & absorbed. An object is white when it reflects the most light rays away and black when it absorbs them all. White paint is white because it absorbs almost no light into its own body. Lead white’s pure whiteness comes with a cost--in its time it has poisoned artists, factory workers, women looking for beauty fixes and children who were attracted to the strange sweet taste. Beautiful, but deadly, lead white has been dubbed the most important pigment in western history--and artists still love it today.

While an alternative to lead white was introduced in the 1780s for watercolors, a suitable alternative in oils was not available until Titanium White was invented just before World War I, leaving artists enamored and beholden to the pure and lovely flake white (Source 2). 

FLAKE WHITE HISTORY
PROCESS FOR THE RIGHT WHITE

Flake white is one of the oldest synthetically produced pigments. It is also one of the most permanent. Some of the earliest documented descriptions of synthetic inorganic pigments were recorded by the Roman, Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History. Pliny wrote about the very best white pigment of his time that came from Rhodes, Greece (Pliny's life and death is connected to the AD 79 Mount Vesuvius Eruption). The process of attaining that brilliant white pigment was a semi-simple equation of metal + acid = pigment. By putting shavings of lead over a bowl filled with vinegar, the action of the acid on the thin metal would cause a chemical reaction, leaving a white deposit of lead carbonate. Rhodes workers then ground the lead carbonate into powder, flattened into little cake-like discs, and left it to dry in the summer heat, creating the world's finest white (Source 2).

A lil’ Dutch recipe for lead white pigment had a bit more flair to it. In Holland, during Rembrandt’s time, the Dutch 'stack' process of making the purest lead white pigment involved clay pots and vinegar, much like the process in Rhodes, but with one added one secret ingredient--buckets & buckets of manure straight from the farm.

The lead workers of Holland would line dozens of clay pots up in small buildings, stack thin strips of lead inside the clay pots, fill the bottom of the pots with vinegar, and heap animal dung into any gaps. The building was then sealed up for a period of about ninety days, during which time the action of the acetic acid, oxygen and carbon dioxide produced in fermentation of the stagnant heat, poisonous metal, and raunchy animal dung, basic white lead carbonate formed in flakes and scales on the surface of the lead strips. The purest, most desirable and cleanest of all whites had formed in a hothouse of vinegar, manure and lead. The lead carbonate was removed by scraping it off the lead, and then ground into flake white pigment ready for use in all its glory.

POPULAR POISON
MAKEUP

In western cultures the color white represents purity. In China & Japan, white is used to show death and sickness. Lead white had been used unsparingly in makeup since Egyptian times and continued use cosmetically by Roman women and Japanese Geishas. Lead based creams and makeups made its way onto the dressing tables of women of all complexions well into the 19th century--despite knowing more about lead white’s insidious nature. For centuries the dangers of lead white were ignored (Pliny had warned us all that lead white was, in fact, poisonous in his Natural History) (Source 2).  

Maria Gunning, a true and tragic fashionista, was the absolute “it girl” of London in 1752. She was astonishingly beautiful and tantalizing. Daily, she spread a thick cream made of lead white all over her face and rouge on her lips and cheeks to give her a alluring look. Her husband (the Earl of Coventry) learned of the dangers of lead and urged her to quit applying the poison to her face. She just couldn't give up her toxic makeup. Blue lines climbed all over her skin, the poisoning cursed her with constipation, it made her go mad, and then, it killed her. In 1760, at the young age of 27, Maria Gunning was another victim of deadly fashion (Source 3).

Bloom of Youth was a foundation created by cosmetics company George W. Laird in the 1870s, advertising a youthful and mysterious appearance with a deadly main ingredient, lead white. That youthful appearance came at a high price--many women applied Bloom of Youth diligently as they were promised an opalescent complexion and consequently died of makeup overdose (plumbism, saturnism, or better known as lead poisoning) (Source 2).

FLAKE WHITE: APPLICATIONS TODAY
COLOR USED IN PORTRAIT FOR CURRENT DEPO BG EXHIBIT

We invite you to our store to the south this month and next, as our Bowling Green gallery space has been filled with work by five of the instructors who appear on our Spring 2017 class schedule.

Debra Buchanan, Paul Brand, Katie Delay, Donna Ebert, and Jennifer Giovannuci have submitted works to our 'Meet the Teachers' exhibition which they feel showcase the skills taught in their workshops held at our Depo stores. From drawing to painting, acrylic to oils, and decorative to foundational, the exhibit presents an exciting mixed bag of both technique and medium - all presented by exceptional professionals.

The above photo is of a stunning oil painting, titled Il Ragazzo, completed by anatomist, painter, and Art Supply Depo instructor Jennifer Giovannucci using Flake White. This work is currently exhibited just above our registers (arranged adjacent to works by Donna and Paul) at the Bowling Green store, and we feel quite lucky to have such a beautifully rendered backdrop to work alongside everyday.  On her use of Flake White, Giovannucci noted that this white is more transparent and luminous than other colors. The young man in the portrait has a truly radiant skin tone, which can be attributed to Jenny’s masterful and delicate touch, as well as extensive understanding of how to build up flesh tones using Flake White as a base.

When applied in thin layers, it is wonderfully transparent. When applied thick, it is heavily dense and opaque. Regardless of how it is applied, it is a luminous and bright opalescent white that bounces light off the canvas in a joyous barrage of glory.  If that description seems overstated, it most likely means you haven’t used Flake White in a painting! It is rare that any mineral-derived color is both lovely when used transparent and in thick layers. Most mineral colors, unlike chemically derived pigments created in a chemistry lab, are only capable of creating one tone - referred to as a “mass tone” - that does not change or shift color regardless of application. Chemical colors are usually “chameleons of color,” never a mineral color. Herein lies the obsession with Flake White. It’s transparency and luminosity make it the only white to use when painting human flesh tones. Titanium and Zinc whites can cause flesh tones to look truly dead. Human flesh is actually transparent, and Flake’s transparency helps to create the illusion of supple, natural, healthy skin. Flake White is a “warm” white that has a faster drying time than titanium white, which can dry notoriously slow in any oil paint mixture.

To see Jennifer's thoughtful use of this pigment, visit our Meet The Teachers exhibit. The show opened January 9th, 2017 and is available to view anytime during business hours through February 20th. A Closing Reception where you can (you guessed it) meet the teachers, ask questions, and sign up for classes will be held on Saturday, February 18th from 1-5pm. We'll have sweet treats to share at the event, which is free and family friendly.

STUDIO SAFETY
HOW TO USE FLAKE WHITE IN YOUR STUDIO

Flake White is classed as toxic which means that care must be taken to avoid ingestion of this pigment or paint mixtures containing this pigment. Flake White can, however, be used safely with the right precautions and studio practice. Extreme care should be used in handling dry powder pigment so as not to inhale the dust. Do not smoke, eat or drink while using the pigment in any form, including in a paint binder.

Disposal of the lead waste from the painting process is also problematic. Throwing lead out with in the garbage, or burying it in your back yard, is prohibited by law. Lead paint, the tubes it came in, as well as rags and solvent used for cleaning when working with lead, are considered hazardous waste and have to be disposed of at hazardous waste sites.

Gamblin's Flake White Replacement was created to keep the same working properties of traditional Flake White but without the dangers of working with paints that contain lead. For techniques where the artist wants more translucency, such as classical portraiture to show the depth of skin, then Flake White Replacement or lead white are best (Source 4).

We are proud to stock paints and mediums by companies like Gamblin, Williamsburg and M. Graham who are working in collaboration with painters that want to eliminate solvents from their painting process. They’ve developed the best and broadest range of safe and solvent-free oil painting materials available. For many artists, Gamblin's Solvent-Free Gel has become a go-to medium. It supports the broadest range of painting techniques with the least compromise across color, dry time, texture and mark-making. Williamsburg’s Wax Medium contains absolutely no solvents while still being able to give paint a very fluid and silky feel. Using natural oils is another solvent-free option. M. Graham’s Walnut Alkyd Medium is a great and safe alternative for your brush cleaning process -- it removes color without creating solvent hazards.

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REFERENCE LIST

1. http://www.essentialvermeer.com/palette/palette_white_lead.html#.WIFicFMrKM8
2. Victoria Finlay, Color: A Natural History of the Palette, 2002
3. Victory Finlay, The Brilliant History of Color in Art
4. https://www.gamblincolors.com/getting-the-white-right-by-robert-gamblin