Green pigments are the materials used to create the green colors seen in painting and the other arts. Most come from minerals, particularly those containing compounds of copper. Green pigments reflect the green portions of the spectrum of visible light, and absorb the others. Important green pigments in art history include Malachite and Verdigris, found in tomb paintings in Ancient Egypt, and the Green earth pigments popular in the Middle Ages.[1] More recent greens, such as Cobalt Green, are largely synthetic, made in laboratories and factories.
Verdigris or Vert-de-Gris, is a blue-green, copper-based pigment. Its name comes from the natural pigments that form a patina on copper, bronze, and brass as it ages.[2] The most famous example is the green patina that formed on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. In the Middle Ages, the patina was made by attaching copper strips to a wooden block with acetic acid, then burying the sealed block in dung. It would be dug up a few weeks later, the verdigris scraped off. Another method was to put copper plates in clay pots filled with distilled wine. The verdigris which formed was scraped off each week.[3]
In the 19th century and earlier, the pigment was also made by hanging copper plates over hot vinegar in a sealed pot until a green crust formed on the copper.[3] Today it is usually made by treating Copper(II) hydroxide with acetic acid.[4]
The pigment was used by the Romans, particularly in the murals at Pompeii.[5] The pigment had its weaknesses; it sometimes suffered from humidity and heat, and when mixed with other colors, sometimes altered them. Verdigris was particularly unstable when used to color an oil paint. It was sometimes mixed with lead white, giving it better opacity. Leonardo da Vinci, in his Treatise on Painting, advised artists to avoid it. Nonetheless, it was widely used in miniature painting, in Safavid art and the art of Mongolia. In the late 19th century, it was almost entirely replaced by the synthetic Chrome green.[6]
Paolo Veronese used verdigris with lead white and some yellow in The Adoration of the Magi, at the National Gallery in London. The color has largely retained its particular brilliance.[7]
Large deposits of malachite were mined by the Egyptians in the eastern desert and the west of Sinai. [8]Cleopatra is recorded to have used malachite to color her eyelids. It was mixed with egg or with the sap of the acacia plant, and used to paint papyrus manuscripts and the walls of tombs.[9]
It was also widely used in China from antiquity, first in painting landscapes, and then, from the 5th century BC until the 3rd century AD, to make green inks, when the official palette of colors, under the influence of Confucianism, was reduced to blues made with azurite, and greens made with malachite.[10]
Artists in India imported malachite from Turkestan for murals, and monks in Tibet ground it coarsely to preserve the intensity of the color in manuscripts. In Europe, and particularly in Ireland, it was widely used for intense greens in illumination and miniature painting. They avoided mixing it with other colors, because in a mixture it became unstable.[11]
It was (and is) extremely expensive (more than 100 Euros for 100 grams in 2000),[citation needed] so it was usually only used on limited surfaces. It was largely replaced in the early 19th century by chrome green, though it is still frequently used in China for fine greens. A synthetic form of malachite, verditer, has also been used.
In Latin America, the Teotihuacan civilisation, which ruled in Mexico between 300 and 650, AD, made murals using crushed malachite, which was mixed with chalk for lighter shades, or mixed with blue from azurite or lapis-lazuli to make blue greens, or with yellow ochre to make yellow-greens.[12]
Classical painters made extensive use of the color. The wedding gown in the Arnolfini Portrait, by Jan van Eyck (1434), was painted with malachite.[13]
Manjushri Ming Dynasty, China thangka (c 1500–50), surrounded by malachite green.
Arnolfini Portrait Jan van Eyck, (1434) (National Gallery, London)
Green earth (Terre Verte)
Green earth was an olive-green natural pigment widely used in the 14th and 15th centuries. It was often used in Italian painting as an under layer beneath flesh colors, particularly in painting by Duccio. In some of Ducco's paintings the upper flesh colors deteriorated, and the green under layer has become visible. Green earth pigments in the Middle Ages supplemented the more expensive malachite pigment. In Europe, they came from Verona, the South of France, and Cyprus. During the Roman Empire they were widely used in frescoes decorating villas. They were used either pure or mixed with other pigments, such as Egyptian Blue. They also were used Egypt in portraits at Fayoum, and in the Buddhist temples at Ajanta in India. In the Middle Ages, since the color by itself was somber, it was sometimes brightened with lead white.
They were also used by Native American artists in North America, particularly the Hopis, who used them to color their ceremonial sand paintings.[14]
Green earth pigment
Mural using green earth pigments of the goddess Flora, in Villa di Arianna, Stabia South Italy. using green earth pigments
Mural of Tawa, the symbol of the Sun, from the Hopi tribe, Painted Desert Inn, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona
Viridian
Viridian is a blue-green synthetic pigment of medium saturation and relatively dark in value, created in the 19th century. It takes its name from "Viridis", the Latin word for green.[15] It became a particular favourite of the painters Paul Cézanne, Jean Renoir and Claude Monet.
Emerald Green, also known as Paris Green, Scheele's Green, Schweinfurt green and Vienna Green, is a synthetic inorganic compound, made by a reaction of sodium arsenite with copper(II) acetate. While it makes a beautiful rich green, the color of the emerald stone, it is highly toxic, due to a main ingredient, arsenic.[17] It was invented as 'emerald green' in 1814 by two chemists, Russ and Sattler, at the Wilhelm Dye and White Lead Company of Schweinfurt, Bavaria, who were trying to improve another similar synthetic pigment, Scheele's green, so that it would not darken around sulfides. Because of its toxic arsenic content, it became a popular rodenticide and insecticide,[18]
Emerald green was particularly popular with the Impressionists, including Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh, both of whom in 1888 placed vivid reds next to Emerald green to create jarring contrasts in their paintings Arlésiennes (Mistral) and The Night Cafe. Van Gogh wrote of the Night Cafe: "The café is one of the most horrible I have every painted. But was intentional, because I tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of the red and green".[19]
Emerald green pigment
Arlesiennes (Mistral) Paul Gauguin (1888)
The Night Café Vincent van Gogh (1888)
Chemical composition of natural and synthetic non-organic green pigments
1 2 Darnton, Robert. "A Bourgeois Puts His World in Order" in The Great Cat Massacre --and other Episodes in French Cultural History. New York: Vintage Books, 1985. p. 114.
↑ Solomon, Sally D.; Rutkowsky, Susan A.; Mahon, Megan L.; Halpern, Erica M. (2011). "Synthesis of Copper Pigments, Malachite and Verdigris: Making Tempera Paint". Journal of Chemical Education. 88 (12): 1694–1697. doi:10.1021/ed200096e.
↑ Bomford and Roy, "A Closer Look at Colour" (2009), p. 38-39
↑ Charanay and De Givry, Comment Regarder Les Couleurs Dans la Peinture, (2017), p. 97
↑ Gettens, R.J. and Fitzhugh, E. W. (1993) "Malachite and Green Verditer", pp. 183–202 in Artists’ Pigments. A Handbook of Their History and Characteristics, Vol. 2: A. Roy (Ed.) Oxford University Press. ISBN0894682601
↑ "Dangers in the Manufacture of Paris Green and Scheele's Green". Monthly Review of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 5 (2): 78–83. 1917. JSTOR41829377.
↑ Ball, Philip, "Histoire Vinvante des Couleurs" (2005), p. 353-353
Bibliography
Pastoureau, Michel (2013). Vert: Histoire d'une couleur (in French). Paris: Éditions du Seuil. ISBN978-2-7578-6731-0.
Varichon, Anne (2005). Couleurs: pigments et teintures dans les mains des peuples (in French). Paris: Editions du Seuil. ISBN978-2-02-084697-4.
Bomford, David; Roy, Ashok (2009). A Closer Look - Colour. London: National Gallery. ISBN978-185709-442-8.
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495–570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combination of yellow and cyan; in the RGB color model, used on television and computer screens, it is one of the additive primary colors, along with red and blue, which are mixed in different combinations to create all other colors. By far the largest contributor to green in nature is chlorophyll, the chemical by which plants photosynthesize and convert sunlight into chemical energy. Many creatures have adapted to their green environments by taking on a green hue themselves as camouflage. Several minerals have a green color, including the emerald, which is colored green by its chromium content.
Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575–585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the RGB color model, used to create colors on television and computer screens, yellow is a secondary color made by combining red and green at equal intensity. Carotenoids give the characteristic yellow color to autumn leaves, corn, canaries, daffodils, and lemons, as well as egg yolks, buttercups, and bananas. They absorb light energy and protect plants from photo damage in some cases. Sunlight has a slight yellowish hue when the Sun is near the horizon, due to atmospheric scattering of shorter wavelengths.
Violet is the color of light at the short wavelength end of the visible spectrum, between blue and invisible ultraviolet. It is one of the seven colors that Isaac Newton labeled when dividing the spectrum of visible light in 1672. Violet light has a wavelength between approximately 380 and 435 nanometers. The color's name is derived from the violet flower.
Purple is any of a variety of colors with hue between red and blue. In the RGB color model used in computer and television screens, purples are produced by mixing red and blue light. In the RYB color model historically used by painters, purples are created with a combination of red and blue pigments. In the CMYK color model used in printing, purples are made by combining magenta pigment with either cyan pigment, black pigment, or both.
Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing and painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used to project colors onto television screens and computer monitors, brown combines red and green.
Ultramarine is a deep blue color pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. The name comes from the Latin ultramarinus, literally 'beyond the sea', because the pigment was imported into Europe from mines in Afghanistan by Italian traders during the 14th and 15th centuries.
A pigment is a colored material that is completely or nearly insoluble in water. In contrast, dyes are typically soluble, at least at some stage in their use. Generally dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic compounds. Pigments of prehistoric and historic value include ochre, charcoal, and lapis lazuli.
Basic copper carbonate is a chemical compound, more properly called copper(II) carbonate hydroxide. It is an ionic compound consisting of the ions copper(II) Cu2+ , carbonate CO2− 3, and hydroxide OH− .
Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the formula Cu2CO3(OH)2. This opaque, green-banded mineral crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, and most often forms botryoidal, fibrous, or stalagmitic masses, in fractures and deep, underground spaces, where the water table and hydrothermal fluids provide the means for chemical precipitation. Individual crystals are rare, but occur as slender to acicular prisms. Pseudomorphs after more tabular or blocky azurite crystals also occur.
Vermilion is a color/ color family and pigment most often made between antiquity and the 19th century from the powdered mineral cinnabar and its corresponding color. It is very often synonymous with red orange, which often takes a modern form just 11% brighter.
Azurite is a soft, deep-blue copper mineral produced by weathering of copper ore deposits. During the early 19th century, it was also known as chessylite, after the type locality at Chessy-les-Mines near Lyon, France. The mineral, a basic carbonate with the chemical formula Cu3(CO3)2(OH)2, has been known since ancient times, and was mentioned in Pliny the Elder's Natural History under the Greek name kuanos (κυανός: "deep blue," root of English cyan) and the Latin name caeruleum. Copper (Cu2+) gives it its blue color. Since antiquity, azurite's exceptionally deep and clear blue has been associated with low-humidity desert and winter skies. The modern English name of the mineral reflects this association, since both azurite and azure are derived via Arabic from the Persian lazhward (لاژورد), an area known for its deposits of another deep-blue stone, lapis lazuli ("stone of azure").
Umber is a natural brown earth pigment and color that contains iron oxide and manganese oxide. In its natural form, it is called raw umber. When calcined, the color becomes warmer and it becomes known as burnt umber.
Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and varnish may be added to increase the glossiness of the dried oil paint film. The addition of oil or alkyd medium can also be used to modify the viscosity and drying time of oil paint. Oil paints were first used in Asia as early as the 7th century AD and can be seen in examples of Buddhist paintings in Afghanistan. Oil-based paints made their way to Europe by the 12th century and were used for simple decoration, but oil painting did not begin to be adopted as an artistic medium there until the early 15th century. Common modern applications of oil paint are in finishing and protection of wood in buildings and exposed metal structures such as ships and bridges. Its hard-wearing properties and luminous colors make it desirable for both interior and exterior use on wood and metal. Due to its slow-drying properties, it has recently been used in paint-on-glass animation. The thickness of the coat has considerable bearing on the time required for drying: thin coats of oil paint dry relatively quickly.
Verdigris is the common name for blue-green, poisonous, copper-based pigments that form a patina on copper, bronze, and brass. The technical literature is ambiguous as to its chemical composition. Some sources refer to "neutral verdigris" as copper(II) acetate monohydrate (Cu(CH3CO2)2·(H2O)) and to "blue verdigris" as Cu(CH3CO2)2·CuO·(H2O)6. Another source describes it as a basic copper carbonate (Cu 2CO 3(OH)2), and, when near the sea, basic copper chloride (Cu2(OH)3Cl). Still other sources describe verdigris as Cu(CH3CO2)2.(Cu(OH)2)n where n varies from 0 to 3. The alchemical symbol for verdigris is 🜨 (unicode U+1F728).
Copper(II) hydroxide is the hydroxide of copper with the chemical formula of Cu(OH)2. It is a pale greenish blue or bluish green solid. Some forms of copper(II) hydroxide are sold as "stabilized" copper(II) hydroxide, although they likely consist of a mixture of copper(II) carbonate and hydroxide. Cupric hydroxide is a strong base, although its low solubility in water makes this hard to observe directly.
Han purple and Han blue are synthetic barium copper silicate pigments developed in China and used in ancient and imperial China from the Western Zhou period until the end of the Han dynasty.
Green earth, also known as terre verte and Verona green, is an inorganic pigment derived from the minerals celadonite and glauconite. Its chemical formula is K[(Al,Fe3+),(Fe2+,Mg] O102.
Blue pigments are natural or synthetic materials, usually made from minerals and insoluble with water, used to make the blue colors in painting and other arts. The raw material of the earliest blue pigment was lapis lazuli from mines in Afghanistan, that was refined into the pigment ultramarine. It was widely used for painting in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Since the late 18th and 19th century, blue pigments are largely synthetic, manufactured in laboratories and factories.
Red pigments are materials, usually made from minerals, used to create the red colors in painting and other arts. The color of red and other pigments is determined by the way it absorbs certain parts of the spectrum of visible light and reflects the others. The brilliant opaque red of vermillion, for example, results because vermillion reflects the major part of red light, but absorbs the blue, green and yellow parts of white light.
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