Experiencing Joy Through Art

   Good morning my friend! I hope your weekend was great and that so far you are having a nice Monday. I thought it might be fun to take a look at a few weird and unusual pigments that artists have used in the past. Without exception, all of these are no longer used as artist’s colors due to their impermanence and/or unfortunate methods of production.

Indian Yellow • Indian yellow was a deep rich yellow pigment that was used in the 18th and 19 Centuries. It originated in India, but was eventually brought to Europe for use as a pigment. Indian Yellow was made by force feeding mango leaves to cows. They were given just enough water to keep them alive but the cattle were underfed and often quite sickly. Mango leaves do not provide enough nutrients for the cows to live on, and these poor animals usually did not live long.

   The mango leaves and minimal water caused the cows to produce a bright yellow urine that was then collected and dried. The yellow residue left from the dried urine was used to make Indian Yellow. The pigment smelled just about as bad as you’d think and it fell out of use at the end of the 1800s because of its inhumane method of production. Modern paint tubes that are labeled as “Indian Yellow” are made from synthetic pigments, usually Diarylide Yellow.

   Cochineal • Cochineal is a bright red pigment sometimes referred to as “Carmine” in the old days. It is made from crushed Cochineal bugs which grow in Central and South America. When the new world was discovered, quite a booming business grew up for the Spanish who were the sole importers of this red colorant for many years. The tiny gray bugs produce a red liquid when crushed that can be dried and converted into a dye or pigment. It was highly prized so whoever had a monopoly on the cochineal bugs could make a fortune.

   Cochineal is no longer used for artist’s pigments because it is not a lightfast color and will fade quickly. However it is still sometime used in cosmetics and food colorants.

   Mummy • Believe it or not, this is exactly what it sounds like. Back in the 18th and early 19th Centuries, Europeans tended to have a hubristic attitude toward ancient and developing cultures. They often held little regard for preserving and respecting the accomplishments of past civilizations and non-western cultures and simply regarded them as curiosities. Fortunately in today’s world this has changed and is no longer the case, but before it changed a lot of damage was done to things that can never be replaced. When the European explorers first began to discover and unearth the treasures of ancient Egypt, simply taking what they wanted and emptying out tombs was a common practice.

   The pigment known “Mummy” in the 19th Century was actually made from mummies that were taken from raided Egyptian tombs. The bodies were ground up into a powder and used as a pigment! I can only imagine what the color would have been…probably a brownish gray. Once it became widely known that this was the source of the color, it fell out of favor. In the latter half of the 19th Century laws began to be passed to preserve ancient discoveries and prevent this sort of egregious abuse. Still, it makes you wonder how many of those old paintings hanging in art museums used this color.

   Lucky for us, in today’s world we have modern chemistry to give us wonderful lightfast pigments that can be made in a lab without killing or destroying anything!