About poisons, caves and something more

Color names

(2nd part)

Ox's head, Altamira cave, 15000-12000 B.C.

Last time I told you what giving a color a name consisted in. And I promised you I’d tell you some stories behind those strange and bizarre names that appear in painting tubes. Should we start?

Boucher, Mme. Pompadour at toilette-table, 1758
(Pastel painting) (Image: Wikipedia)

There are no issues about whites, they all are named under the chemical elements: zync (PW4)[1], lead, titanium (PW6)… Sometimes my students ask me “Aren’t all whites the same?” Yes, they are all white, but they have different brightness, purity and texture. Titanium white is the youngest (1930); lead white has much more history behind, it was already used in Ancient Egypt. It’s highly toxic; nowadays it’s sold under a lot of restrictions and warnings. It was then used as make up! It caused facial paralysis and tooth falling, and harsh suffering until causing death. It is thought that Goya’s deafness was due to an intoxication with lead white: saturnism (this was the name this substance had in Middle Ages: as a metal it corresponded to god Saturn). And he was not the only one. In 1840 zinc white started to be produced (it’s just talcum powder or chalk) and substituted this so damaging lead white.

Goya, Otras leyes por el pueblo, 1816  (aquatint)

There are not either many black pigments: the difference between them can be appreciated better when mixed with white or other colors. Legends tell (transmitted by Pliny, the great Roman encyclopedist) that Apeles, painter part of Alexander the Great’s court, heated up brewed ivory, creating the black pigment par excellence: for a long time it was produced distilling well peeled bones and it just kept the name.

Signac, Woman at the Lamplight,
1890

The lamp black (PBk7) exists since ever the human being painted in caves: it’s carbon soot! It receives this name for oil lamps, which would leave this dust that would make everything a mess. (And what is painting other than dirtying?) Pliny says (yes, once again) that the first portrait was done by one of Corinth’s girl, hurt because her love, a marine, was going away: she delineated his shadow with coal on the wall to retain his image somehow. This wise Roman did not know that our cavemen ancestors already had used it in Altamira, Niaux, Chauvet and so many other… The girl had not been very original... Could you draw with coal from your next barbeque? Well, you could, but it’s not recommendable. You’d rather use charcoal sticks. 

Oxyd black (PBk11) is an iron oxide, copper or zinc patina, which is why it has a brown shade. And since iron is present, it also is named Mars black, god of War.

Payne, Self-portrait, 1820
(Image: Wikipedia)

And the famous Payne’s Gray? No, it’s not a place; it’s the name of who invented it. William Payne is one of the most highlightable English watercolorists and he had a problem: he needed a black pigment that would not turn into green when mixed with yellow and other colors. He found a mixture of ultramarine blue or Prussian blue, Raw Sienna and carmine; it’s not what we call a grey, it’s more of a black with violet shades. Since the mixture has no black, he solved his issue (and many other painters’).

Some other day we’ll keep going with more colors.

And don’t forget to ask if you want know the origin of other color names.

Sources: Doerner, M. Malmaterial und seine Verwendung im Bilde. Stuttgart, Enke V. 1989;

Heller, E. Wie Farben auf Gefühl und Verstand wirken. München, Droemer V., 2000;

personal notes.

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[1] These are codes corresponding to these pigments, see previous post here. I don't mention the colors's codes that are a mixing. If you click in the colors's names, you can see them in vasaricolors.com.

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