Color is a wonderful thought provoking subject, and one that’s been around for 20,000 years, as evidenced by early cave paintings. Throughout history, cultures have ascribed meanings and symbolism to almost all colors. For every region and age, pigments and dyes were produced.
In particular, the Chinese were thought to manufacture and perfect the use of color tens of thousands of years ago. They also believed in Color Healing and recorded color “diagnoses” through a 2,000-year-old Chinese chronicle called, “The Nei/ching.”
Egypt is another region known for its use of color. Modern house painting is inspired by the technical achievements of the Egyptians. The ancient Egyptians believed color to have magical healing properties. The ancient Egyptians developed yellow, orange, and red paints from pigments found in the soil.
Before the 19th century, “paint” was only known as something that was oil-bound; something bound with glue was called “distemper.” By 1,000 BC, the development of paints and varnishes from acacia tree gum or, gum Arabic was developed. During this period, ochers, umbers, and blacks were easily obtainable, and new colors were also being discovered.
Painting as an art form was established in Crete and Greece around 1500 BC. It was also during this time that the Romans learned of Egyptian color skills. The Romans created the color purple, made using a pound of royal purple dye that required the crushing of 4,000,000 mollusks. The Egyptians created the first new color during this period, known as “Egyptian Blue.”
“Naples Yellow” was discovered around 500 BC. To make Genuine Indian Yellow, it had to be sent to London for purification after mixing mud with concentrated cow urine. Sap Green came from the Blackthorn berry, and Sepia Brown from the dried ink sac of squid.
Plato made one of the earliest color discoveries in mixing two colors together, producing a third. The manufacture of color was thus changed.
While color was important and for some cultures, even a religious aspect, none of the previous groups named many colors. In the 1960s, two anthropologists conducted an international study of color naming. Often times, many languages would only have two color terms, meaning white light and black dark. These anthropologists studied 98 languages, and discovered that the largest number of basic color terms were in English, in which we have eleven: white, black, red, yellow, green, orange, blue, pink, purple, grey, and brown. The other millions of color names are “borrowed;” i.e., grape, peach, gold, avocado, tan, watermelon, etc.
What makes up paint is pigment, which is a binder that holds it together. Appropriate thinners make paint easy to apply. 5,000 years ago, the first synthetic pigment was made by the Egyptians from grinded down blue grass, called “Blue Frit.”
Prior to the 16th century, pigment color greatly depending on dyestuffs, which could be grown in or were indigenous to Europe and similar temperate regions. “Natural” dyestuffs were available from 1550 – 1850, but the range of available dyestuffs was extended with tropical dyestuffs from Indian, Central America, etc.
Between 600 BC – AD 400, the Romans and Greeks produced varnishes. Red dye was considered more valuable than gold in another culture across the ocean. The culture was the Aztec civilization, and they practiced Color Healing as well.
“Cochineal red” was discovered by the Aztecs and made using the female cochineal beetle. A million insects were needed to make one pound of water-soluble extract. The Spaniards introduced red to Europe in the 16th century.
“Red lead” was discovered by accident around 2500. Demand for white lead increased, and while it occurs naturally, the demand brought about manmade reproductions Vitruvius, a Roman writer, architect, and engineer, describes what white lead production was like in the 2nd century AD. By the 17th century, the Dutch exponentially increased white lead availability and lowered the cost by inventing the “Stack Process,” a chemical process that casts metallic lead as thin buckles, stacks them up and leaves them for four to sixteen weeks, which turns the blue-grey lead to white lead all white lead paints have chalk in their undercoats; purer white lead is reserved for finish coats.
Henry Perkins discovered the first real synthetic dye, “Mauveine,” in 1856. People know realized that many dyes could be made synthetically and relatively cheaply. Linseed oil and pigment-grade zinc oxide or, white paint began being produced from that point on.
Industrialists produced the first washable paint using cast-iron paint mills and zinc-based pigments in the 1870′s; it’s named was “Charlton White.” The first ready-mixed paint was patented by D.R. Averill of Ohio in 1867, but it failed to catch on.
Sherwin Williams tried for ten years to perfect a formula in which fine paint particles would remain suspended in linseed oil. They succeeded in 1880 when they developed a formula that greatly exceeded the quality of all available paints during that point in time. Emulsions with similar formulas were marketed and produced as “oil bound distempers.” New paints became available in tins in 1880, with a large number of colors and were exported all over the world.
And the rest is history – today, we have thousands and thousands of colors to choose from from many different paint manufacturers. From the Egyptians to today’s painting contractors, colors have never been more fascinating.
