Why the Modern Era should be the Most Colorful Era ever
- Ethan A. Hayes
- Feb 24
- 5 min read
Did you know that before the 1800's there were few very bright pigments available, and the ones we did have were either very expensive, toxic, or were light-sensitive vegetable dyes? Let's look at some of the best pigments the modern world has afforded us and see why God has provided us with everything to have beautiful things:
very easily and inexpensively
Ultramarine Blue:
In the Middle Ages lapis lazuli was imported at great expense from Afghanistan to be burned, ground, and chemically processed in order to make the famed 'ultramarine' blue pigment, literally meaning 'over the sea'. As a mineral, it was a wonderfully vibrant blue, essentially permanent, lasting for centuries outside of exposure to certain acids. So since blue is a rare color in living things, historically there were few other sources of blue pigment at all, ultramarine was the best.
Now post 1826, when Jean-Baptiste Giumet first synthesized a chemically identical ultramarine blue pigment, now even bluer than the natural material, ultramarine is financially within reach of anyone. It's the studio's favorite blue pigment, just as it has been for artists for hundreds of years. A professional tube of the stuff, might cost $8, but in the Middle Ages it would have cost thousands, perhaps around $4000, about the same cost as gold. In a city like Florence during the Renaissance, this would have been approximately the 24 times the cost of renting an apartment for a month.
Due to this exorbitant expense, ultramarine blue was reserved for only the more exquisite works, or for when an object really mandated it, such as for the cloak of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The blue in many of the world's most famous paintings such as the Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring were only partially paint in ultramarine, adulterating it with some other pigment to save money or just glazing over a cheaper color with a top coat of pure ultramarine. This is no longer necessary at all and we can use the same pigment now freely with no concern for how long it takes for a ship to sail from the Middle East. A church wants to paint their entire ceiling a deep vibrant blue in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title Star of the Sea? It is really no more materially expensive than any other color. Instead we see churches painting their images of the Blessed Virgin in quite grey blues. When there is no longer a limit on the material expense, one must ask why we wish to paint Our Lady, the crown of creation, as if we are medieval paupers.
Cadmium Red and Other Heavy Metal Pigments:
Where some colors were rare, others were not durable. Warm colors such as reds and yellows are a prime example. Pigments work because they absorb wavelengths of light and a reflect some particular ones back. When a red appearing surface receives light from the sun, it is absorbing blue, green, and other color wavelengths, but reflects only the red constituent wavelengths back to our eyes.
Because blue wavelength light has a high frequency, it carries a lot of energy. This is just like how ultraviolet light carries more energy than visible light, and X-ray frequencies carries more energy than ultraviolet. Because of all this, pigments that absorb blue light (red pigments) take a beating from the sun, often breakdown over time, and generally just tend to fade fast.
Enter the modern era, using heavy metals such as cadmium, we began to find way to make much more durable pigments. Heavy metals bond very strongly, (which is coincidentally why they are so toxic) and are much more resistant to the bombardment of photons from the sun. Cadmium's particular potential for making strong pigments was identified almost immediately after its discovery in 1817, but it wasn't until the 1840's when commercial extraction made the pigment artistically viable. Out of this discovery we were given many excellent modern pigments. Cadmium Red (PR108), Cadmium Yellow (PY35) Cadmium Orange (PR20), and even Cadmium Green (PG14) though rarely used, are all products of this discovery.
This idea was not new, it was traditional even. The ancients had long ago discovered the benefits of using another heavy metal, lead, for making a very opaque white pigment which was readily used everywhere until the 1960's when it was replaced with another excellent white pigment, Titanium White (PW06).
Similarly cobalt, another toxic heavy metal, made an excellent pigment. Cobalt Blue (PB28) is Ultramarine's slightly greenish cousin and many painters will use both depending on the need. Discovered by the French in 1802 as useful for making pigments, the element had been already unwittingly used to color stained glass for hundreds of years being mistaken as the element bismuth. Nothing is new under the sun, but sometimes God gives us more than we previously thought possible.
Mauveine and Modern Purples:
While blues were rare, and reds were shoddy, other colors were just straight expensive. Before the 1800's the only way to make REALLY purple or violet cloth was with the age-old and technically complex Tyrian purple from certain predatory sea snails. A closely guarded secret ancient times due to its value, it became associated only with the Roman emperor and later royalty in general. Even liturgical linens for Lent and Advent before the modern era were never quite purple, but were often inconsistently some deep blueish or reddish shade. Lenten garments tended toward a redder violet, while Advent garments were often on the bluer side of purple.
When William Henry Perkins (an Englishman this time) accidentally discovered a way to first synthesize a truly violet dye over Easter vacation in 1856, he was actually trying to synthesize quinine, a medicine for treating malaria. But with Perkin's purple, 'aniline', or 'mauveine' as it came to be called, mauve fabrics became extremely fashionable from 1859-1861. (Perkins made a lot of money because of his Easter mistake) But mauveine wasn't even that great of a pigment compared to what we have now, eventually discovered to be carcinogenic after many decades of use.
Now we have a wealth of great, safe, light-fast, and permanent purple dyes: Quinacridones (PR122, PR202, PV19 and others) are a large family of incredibly intense red-violet pigments first discovered in 1896 but not commercialized until as late as 1958. Something Tyrian purple only ever hoped to be, quinacridone magenta is perfect for painting fleshy bruises on crucifixes and the royal robes of Christ. It can really stain your hands! Dioxazine (PV23), discovered in 1928 but also not commercialized till the 50's, is similarly a really strong dye, almost too strong if you don't like purple work clothes. Far less red than its quinacridone cousins, it is the perfectly ideal straight purple, even when you mix it with Titanium White for a vibrant yet springy lavender color.
These purple pigments would have been the cause of wars in ancient times due to their strength and durability, but we have them in so much abundance. What was once a color so exceptional that only the emperor and God's own flowers wore it, it is now just a name in a child's box of crayons. Yet for some reason we are hesitant to dress Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in anything especially notable, except maybe a rusty reddish cloak and a simple white tunic or whatever the diocesan committee will approve. Maybe just order retail.
If you excuse the mad scientist in the corner going on about the history of chemical dyes and pigments, what really should be thought about this? Have we really progressed beyond such gaudy and tasteless crudeness of color that we need a dull harmony of creams and taupes in order to feel God? Why do we as a people loathe color? Children do not. They want the best harmonies of oranges and blue, and pinks, and yellows. They are full of life and we are not. Do we fear our own lack of taste and aesthetic ability? We should.
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