Whites

Lead White The greatest of the whites, and certainly the cruellest, is made of lead. It is hard to imagine a history of art without this dense ‘silver’ white. Lead may have been liberated from its ores as early as 5000 years ago as there is extensive evidence of lead [...]

Blacks

Vine Black Nearly any kind of wood will make charcoal but the most prized for producing beautiful blue-blacks is that made of vines, traditionally made by charring grape vines and stems. Charcoal was a key component of cave painting, examples date back 28,000 years. Many cultures have utilised charcoal for [...]

The First Colours

Ochre - Milingimbi The oldest living culture in the world has developed a complex and unique use of natural pigments in the creation of a diverse range of form and application across this continent. We are proud to partner with Milingimbi Art & Culture Centre, a community owned art practice, [...]

Colour of the Ancient World

Egyptian Blue Egyptian blue, was mankind’s first synthetically produced colour, invented in Ancient Egypt about 5,500 years ago, the same time that the Great Pyramids were built. It was not produced by blind chance, but created with precision. Made from lime, copper and quartz and then kiln red at a [...]

Classical world

  Tyrian Purple The most prestigious pigment of the ancient world was actually made from a predatory sea snail. The dye is extracted from Murex brandaris, a mollusc native to Tyre in Phoenicia, now modern Lebanon, its production going back at least to 1500 BC. In Greek legend it was [...]

Metalics

Gold From pre-history, gold has been a material of wealth; so what could be more pious than to offer it up to the gods through art? Seemingly immune to the passing years; it did not tarnish and lose its splendour. The use of gold in medieval art shows us more [...]

Middle Ages & Renaissance

Lapis Lazuli ‘Ultramarine blue is a colour illustrious, beautiful, and most perfect, beyond all other colours’ How could a colour cost more than gold itself? Ultramarine (Latin ‘from beyond the seas’) is extracted from the natural rock Lapis lazuli (‘blue stone’) sourced almost exclusively for 6,000 years from a single [...]

Writing Inks

Walnut Ink Made from the fresh husks of walnuts, this ink has been in use since the Middle Ages. A rich velvety brown, it can be darkened by evaporating the liquor. Learn More Iron Oak Gall Ink This medieval ink starts with a wasp. In spring, it punctures the soft [...]

Lake Pigments

Kermes Is this a berry, a seed or something else altogether? It is, in fact, a wingless scale insect that lives on the Scarlet Oak tree of southern and eastern Europe. Historically, it was a very important crimson dye. The Ancient Egyptians imported it from Mesopotamia, but trade routes covered [...]

Mysterious Colour

Indian Yellow For years the ingredients of Indian Yellow were a mystery. Speculation abounded, many noted the smell and believed that it was the urine of camels or snakes. It wasn’t until 1883 that these rumours were settled about its origin. Indian yellow was prepared from the urine of cows, [...]

The Explosion of Colour

Prussian Blue In 1704 the dye-maker Johann Jacob DiesbachIt made a chance discovery that characterises so much of the history of artists’ colours and in the process invented the first modern, artificially manufactured colour. Working in his Berlin laboratory on a cochineal red pigment, he disregarded the fact that one [...]

Synthetic Chemistry

Phthalocyanine The phthalocyanines, introduced in the early 20th century, were the first class of organic colourants to be introduced directly to the market as ‘true' pigments, without initially being developed as dyes or lakes. They were a new class of super pigments with incredibly high performance in terms of tinting [...]

Brave New World

Synthetic manufacture of iron oxide was known by at least the 15th century, though large scale production did not emerge until the middle of the 19th century. Historical methods of manufacture included the simple heating of iron filings, by the dissolving of them in aqua regia (a mixture of hydrochloric [...]

Light Captured

Fluorescent How does fluorescence work? It’s all about energy! When light shines on a fluorescent pigment, a photon of light is absorbed by the molecule. In effect, energy is absorbed. This excites the electrons inside the molecule. As the excited electrons loses energy. the electrons emit the absorbed photon of [...]

Future of Colour

YnMin Blue Thermochromic Put your hands flat on the surface, leave in place for a few seconds and watch it leave a red handprint! These pigments, known as thermochromics, change colour or disappear when the temperature is raised, such as the heat from your body. Here we have painted a [...]

Making Colour

The Chromatopia collection is currently being archived. Please return here shortly to see the full library of pigments in the exhibition.