The Secret Lives of Color

by Kassia St. Clair

4. B. Klinkhammer, “After Purism: Le Corbusier and Color,” in Preservation Education & Research, Vol. 4 (2011), p. 22.

  5. Quoted in Gage, Color and Culture, pp. 246–7.

  6. L. Kahney, Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products (London: Penguin, 2013), p. 285.

  7. C. Humphries, “Have We Hit Peak Whiteness?,” in Nautilus (July 2015).

  8. Quoted in V. Finlay, The Brilliant History of Color in Art (Los Angeles, CA: Getty Publications, 2014), p. 21.

  Lead white

  1. P. Ah-Rim, “Colors in Mural Paintings in Goguryeo Kingdom Tombs,” in M. Dusenbury (ed.), Color in Ancient and Medieval East Asia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), pp. 62, 65.

  2. Ball, Bright Earth, pp. 34, 70.

  3. Ibid., p. 137.

  4. P. Vernatti, “A Relation of the Making of Ceruss,” in Philosophical Transactions, No. 137, Royal Society (Jan./Feb. 1678), pp. 935–6.

  5. C. Warren, Brush with Death: A Social History of Lead Poisoning (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), p. 20.

  6. T. Nakashima et al., “Severe Lead Contamination Among Children of Samurai Families in Edo Period Japan,” in Journal of Archaeological Science, Vol. 32, Issue 1 (2011), pp. 23–8.

  7. G. Lomazzo, A Tracte Containing the Artes of Curious Paintinge, Caruinge & Buildinge, trans. R. Haydock (Oxford, 1598), p. 130.

  8. Warren, Brush with Death, p. 21.

  Ivory

  1. D. Loeb McClain, “Reopening History of Storied Norse Chessmen,” in New York Times (Sept. 8, 2010).

  2. K. Johnson, “Medieval Foes with Whimsy,” in New York Times (Nov. 17, 2011).

  3. C. Russo, “Can Elephants Survive a Legal Ivory Trade? Debate Is Shifting Against It,” in National Geographic (Aug. 30, 2014).

  4. E. Larson, “The History of the Ivory Trade,” in National Geographic (Feb. 25, 2013). Available at: http://education.nationalgeographic.org/media/history-ivory-trade/ (accessed Apr. 12, 2017).

  Silver

  1. F. M. McNeill, The Silver Bough: Volume One, Scottish Folk-Lore and Folk-Belief, 2nd edition (Edinburgh: Canongate Classics, 2001), p. 106.

  2. Konstantinos, Werewolves: The Occult Truth (Woodbury: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2010), p. 79.

  3. S. Bucklow, The Alchemy of Paint: Art, Science and Secrets from the Middle Ages (London: Marion Boyars, 2012), p. 124.

  4. A. Lucas and J. R. Harris, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, 4th edition (Mineola,NY: Dover Publications, 1999), p. 246.

  5. Ibid., p. 247.

  Whitewash

  1. E. G. Pryor, “The Great Plague of Hong Kong,” in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch, Vol. 15 (1975), pp. 61–2.

  2. Wilm, “A Report on the Epidemic of Bubonic Plague at Hongkong in the Year 1896,” quoted ibid.

  3. Shropshire Regimental Museum, “The Hong Kong Plague, 1894–95,” Available at: www.shropshireregimentalmuseum.co.uk/regimental-history/shropshire-light-infantry/the-hong-kong-plague-1894-95/(accessed Aug. 26, 2015).

  4. “Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Metropolitan Sanitary Commissioners,” in Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons, Vol. 32 (London: William Clowes & Sons, 1848).

  5. M. Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (New York: Plain Label Books, 2008), p. 16.

  Isabelline

  1. M. S. Sánchez, “Sword and Wimple: Isabel Clara Eugenia and Power,” in A. J. Cruz and M. Suzuki (eds.), The Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009), pp. 64–5.

  2. Quoted in D. Salisbury, Elephant’s Breath and London Smoke (Neustadt: Five Rivers, 2009), p. 109.

  3. Ibid., p. 108.

  4. H. Norris, Tudor Costume and Fashion, reprinted edition (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1997), p. 611.

  5. W. C. Oosthuizen and P. J. N. de Bruyn, “Isabelline King Penguin Aptenodytes Patagonicus at Marion Island,” in Marine Ornithology, Vol. 37, Issue 3 (2010), pp. 275–6.

  Chalk

  1. R. J. Gettens, E. West Fitzhugh, and R. L. Feller, “Calcium Carbonate Whites,” in Studies in Conservation, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Aug. 1974), pp. 157, 159–60.

  2. Ibid., p. 160.

  3. G. Field, Chromatography: Or a Treatise on Colors and Pigments and of Their Powers in Painting, &c. (London: Forgotten Books, 2012), p. 71.

  4. A. Houbraken, “The Great Theater of Dutch Painters,” quoted in R. Cumming, Art Explained: The World’s Greatest Paintings Explored and Explained (London: Dorling Kindersley, 2007), p. 49.

  5. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 163.

  6. H. Glanville, “Varnish, Grounds, Viewing Distance, and Lighting: Some Notes on Seventeenth-Century Italian Painting Technique,” in C. Lightweaver (ed.), Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice (New York: Getty Conservation Institute, 1995), p. 15; Ball, Bright Earth, p. 100.

  7. C. Cennini, The Craftsman’s Handbook, Vol. 2, trans. D. V. Thompson (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1954), p. 71.

  8. P. Schwyzer, “The Scouring of the White Horse: Archaeology, Identity, and ‘Heritage,’” in Representations, No. 65 (Winter 1999), p. 56.

  9. Ibid., p. 56.

  10. Ibid., p. 42.

  Beige

  1. Anonymous, “London Society” (Oct. 1889), quoted in Salisbury, Elephant’s Breath and London Smoke, p. 19.

  2. L. Eiseman and K. Recker, Pantone: The 20th Century in Color (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2011), pp. 45–7, 188–9, 110–1, 144–5.

  3. K. Glazebrook and I. Baldry, “The Cosmic Spectrum and the Color of the Universe,” Johns Hopkins Physics and Astronomy blog. Available at: www.pha.jhu.edu/~kgb/cosspec/ (accessed Oct. 10, 2015).

  4. S. V. Phillips, The Seductive Power of Home Staging: A Seven-Step System for a Fast and Profitable Sale (Indianapolis, IN: Dog Ear Publishing, 2009), p. 52.

  Yellow

  1. S. Doran, The Culture of Yellow, or: The Visual Politics of Late Modernity (New York: Bloomsbury, 2013), p. 2.

  2. C. Burdett, “Aestheticism and Decadence,” British Library Online. Available at: www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/aestheticism-and-decadence (accessed Nov. 23, 2015).

  3. Quoted in D. B. Sachsman and D. W. Bulla (eds.), Sensationalism: Murder, Mayhem, Mudslinging, Scandals and Disasters in 19th-Century Reporting (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2013), p. 5.

  4. Doran, Culture of Yellow, p. 52.

  5. R. D. Harley, Artists’ Pigments c. 1600–1835 (London: Butterworth, 1970), p. 101.

  6. Doran, Culture of Yellow, pp. 10–1.

  7. Z. Feng and L. Bo, “Imperial Yellow in the Sixth Century,” in M. Dusenbury (ed.), Color in Ancient and Medieval East Asia, p. 103; J. Chang, Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (London: Vintage, 2013), p. 5.

  8. B. N. Goswamy, “The Color Yellow,” in Tribune India (Sept. 7, 2014).

  9. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 85.

  10. “Why Do Indians Love Gold?,” in The Economist (Nov. 20, 2013). Available at: www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/11/economist-explains-11 (accessed Nov. 24, 2015).

  Blonde

  1. V. Sherrow, Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 2006), p. 149.

  2. Ibid., p. 154.

  3. Ibid., p. 148.

  4. “Going Down,” in The Economist (Aug. 11, 2014). Available at: www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/08/daily-chart-5 (accessed Oct. 25, 2015).

  5. A. Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady (New York: Liveright, 1998), p. 37.

  6. “The Case Against Tipping,” in The Economist (Oct. 26, 2015). Available at: www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2015/10/service-compris (accessed Oct. 26, 2015).

  7. A. G. Walton, “DNA Study Shatters the ‘Dumb Blonde’ Stereotype,” in Forbes (June 2, 2014). Available at: www
.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2014/06/02/science-shatters-the-blondes-are-dumb-stereotype.

  Lead-tin yellow

  1. H. Kühn, “Lead-Tin Yellow,” in Studies in Conservation, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Feb. 1968), p. 20.

  2. G. W. R. Ward (ed.), The Grove Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques in Art (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 512; N. Eastaugh et al., Pigment Compendium: A Dictionary and Optical Microscopy of Historical Pigments (Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2008), p. 238.

  3. Kühn, “Lead-Tin Yellow,” pp. 8–11.

  4. Eastaugh et al., Pigment Compendium, p. 238.

  5. Ward (ed.), Grove Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques in Art, p. 512.

  6. Kühn, “Lead-Tin Yellow,” p. 8.

  7. This is the method for producing lead-tin yellow type I, which is the more common kind. A second, rarer variety includes silica and is heated to higher temperatures, between 900 and 950°C.

  8. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 137; Kühn, “Lead-Tin Yellow,” p. 11.

  Indian yellow

  1. B. N. Goswamy, art historian and author; personal correspondence.

  2. Handbook of Young Artists and Amateurs in Oil Painting, 1849, quoted in Salisbury, Elephant’s Breath and London Smoke, p. 106.

  3. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 155.

  4. Quoted in Salisbury, Elephant’s Breath and London Smoke, p. 106.

  5. Harley, Artists’ Pigments, p. 105.

  6. Field, Chromatography, p. 83.

  7. “Indian Yellow,” in Bulletin of Miscellaneous Information (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew), Vol. 1890, No. 39 (1890), pp. 45–7.

  8. T. N. Mukharji, “Piuri or Indian Yellow,” in Journal of the Society for Arts, Vol. 32, No. 1618 (Nov. 1883), p. 16.

  9. Ibid., pp. 16–17.

  10. Finlay, Color, pp. 230, 237.

  11. Ibid., pp. 233–40.

  12. C. McKeich, “Botanical Fortunes: T. N. Mukharji, International Exhibitions, and Trade Between India and Australia,” in Journal of the National Museum of Australia, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Mar. 2008), pp. 2–3.

  Acid yellow

  1. See: www.unicode.org/review/pri294/pri294-emoji-image-background.html

  2. J. Savage, “A Design for Life,” in the Guardian (Feb. 21, 2009). Available at: www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/feb/21/smiley-face-design-history (accessed Mar. 4, 2016).

  3. Quoted in J. Doll, “The Evolution of the Emoticon,” in the Wire (Sept. 19, 2012). Available at: www.thewire.com/entertainment/2012/09/evolution-emoticon/57029/ (accessed Mar. 6, 2016).

  Naples yellow

  1. E. L. Richter and H. Härlin, “A Nineteenth-Century Collection of Pigment and Painting Materials,” in Studies in Conservation, Vol. 19, No. 2 (May 1974), p. 76.

  2. It is so garbled that a translation from German is difficult, but Neapel means “Naples” and Gelb means “yellow”. Richter and Härlin, “A Nineteenth-Century Collection of Pigment and Painting Materials,” p. 77.

  3. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, though, the term Naples yellow was erroneously applied to other yellows too, particularly lead-tin oxides [here]. The distinction was not properly cleared up until the 1940s.

  4. Eastaugh et al., Pigment Compendium, p. 279.

  5. Field, Chromatography, p. 78.

  6. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 58, and Lucas and Harris, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, p. 190.

  7. Quoted in Gage, Color and Culture, p. 224.

  Chrome yellow

  1. Less than five months later, after Gauguin had moved in, relations between the two broke down. One evening, just before Christmas 1888, Van Gogh walked into a brothel a few doors down from the Yellow House and handed a prostitute a portion of his own ear, wrapped in newspaper. He was committed to first one asylum and then another; on July 27, 1890, he shot himself in the chest; he died the next day.

  2. V. van Gogh, letters to Emile Bernard [letter 665]; Theo van Gogh [letter 666]; and Willemien van Gogh [letter 667]. Available at: http://vangoghletters.org/vg/.

  3. Harley, Artists’ Pigments, p. 92.

  4. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 175; Harley, Artists’ Pigments, p. 93.

  5. N. L. Vauquelin quoted in Ball, Bright Earth, p. 176.

  6. I. Sample, “Van Gogh Doomed His Sunflowers by Adding White Pigments to Yellow Paint,” in the Guardian (Feb. 14, 2011); M. Gunther, “Van Gogh’s Sunflowers May Be Wilting in the Sun,” in Chemistry World (Oct. 28, 2015). Available at: www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2015/10/van-gogh-sunflowers-pigment-darkening.

  Gamboge

  1. R. Christison, “On the Sources and Composition of Gamboge,” in W. J. Hooker (ed.), Companion to the Botanical Magazine, Vol. 2 (London: Samuel Curtis, 1836), p. 239.

  2. Harley, Artists’ Pigments, p. 103.

  3. Field, Chromatography, p. 82.

  4. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 156.

  5. Finlay, Color, p. 243.

  6. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 157.

  7. J. H. Townsend, “The Materials of J. M. W. Turner: Pigments,” in Studies in Conservation, Vol. 38, No. 4 (Nov. 1993), p. 232.

  8. Field, Chromatography, p. 82.

  9. Christison, “On the Sources and Composition of Gamboge,” in Hooker (ed.), Companion to the Botanical Magazine, p. 238.

  10. The way in which the movement of large particles in fluid is affected by the jostling of atoms and molecules.

  11. G. Hoeppe, Why the Sky Is Blue: Discovering the Color of Life, trans. J. Stewart (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 203–4.

  Orpiment

  1. Cennini, Craftsman’s Handbook, Vol. 2, p. 28.

  2. Eastaugh et al., Pigment Compendium, p. 285.

  3. E. H. Schafer, “Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition,” in Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 75, No. 2 (Apr.–June 1955), p. 74.

  4. Cennini, Craftsman’s Handbook, Vol. 2, pp. 28–9.

  5. Schafer, “Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition,” pp. 75–6.

  6. Quoted in Finlay, Color, p. 242.

  7. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 300.

  8. Cennini, Craftsman’s Handbook, Vol. 2, p. 29.

  Imperial yellow

  1. K. A. Carl, With the Empress Dowager of China (New York: Routledge, 1905), pp. 6–8.

  2. Chang, Empress Dowager Cixi, p. 5.

  3. Carl, With the Empress Dowager of China, pp. 8–11.

  4. Feng and Bo, “Imperial Yellow in the Sixth Century,” in Dusenbury (ed.), Color in Ancient and Medieval East Asia, p. 104–5.

  5. Ibid.

  Gold

  1. One gold mine was found in Carmarthenshire in Wales and was exploited by the Romans from the middle of the first century A.D. Another is at Kremnica in what is now Slovakia, which was extensively worked from the beginning of the fourteenth century, leading to a drop in price all over Europe.

  2. Bucklow, Alchemy of Paint, p. 176.

  3. Ibid., p. 177.

  4. See: www.britannica.com/biography/Musa-I-of-Mali; Bucklow, Alchemy of Paint, p. 179.

  5. Ball, Bright Earth, p. 35.

  6. Cennini, Craftsman’s Handbook, pp. 81, 84.

  7. Making gold paint was no less finicky and expensive than gilding sheets. The metal is so malleable that if one attempts to grind it the pieces will only begin welding together. Instead, it was mixed with fluid mercury to form a paste which, when the excess mercury was squeezed out, became brittle enough to pound to powder in a pestle and mortar. Finally, the mercury could be extracted by gently heating the mixture. This was work for alchemists, who for millennia had been trying to create gold and were well equipped to handle the real thing.

  8. Quoted in Bucklow, Alchemy of Paint, p. 184.

  Orange

  1. J. Eckstut and A. Eckstut, The Secret Language of Color (New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2013), p. 72.<
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  2. Salisbury, Elephant’s Breath and London Smoke, p. 148.

  3. Quoted in Ball, Bright Earth, p. 23.

  4. J. Colliss Harvey, Red: A Natural History of the Redhead (London: Allen & Unwin, 2015), p. 2.

  5. Eckstut and Eckstut, Secret Language of Color, p. 82.

  6. Rijksmuseum, “William of Orange (1533–1584), Father of the Nation.” Available at: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/explore-the-collection/historical-figures/william-of-orange (accessed Dec. 1, 2015); Eckstut and Eckstut, Secret Language of Color, p. 75.

  7. Black, battleship, and warm gray were also considered; warm gray was named the second choice. The CMYK code for GGB international orange is C: 0%; M: 69%; Y: 100%; K: 6%.

  8. L. Eiseman and E. P. Cutter, Pantone on Fashion: A Century of Color in Design (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2014), p. 16.

  9. Ibid., p. 15.

  10. Quoted in Ball, Bright Earth, p. 23.

  11. Quoted in Salisbury, Elephant’s Breath and London Smoke, p. 149.

  Dutch orange

  1. Eckstut and Eckstut, Secret Language of Color, p. 76.

  2. Rijksmuseum, “William of Orange, Father of the Nation.”

  3. S. R. Friedland (ed.), Vegetables: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cooking 2008 (Totnes: Prospect, 2009), pp. 64–5.

  4. Eckstut and Eckstut, Secret Language of Color, p. 75.

  5. E. G. Burrows and M. Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 82–3.

  Saffron

  1. Eckstut and Eckstut, Secret Language of Color, p. 82; D. C. Watts, Dictionary of Plant Lore, (Burlington, VT: Elsevier, 2007), p. 335.

  2. Saffron is integral to many Spanish dishes, not least paella, but homegrown saffron is not nearly enough to satisfy demand: today Spain is a vast net importer of Iranian saffron.

  3. Finlay, Color, pp. 252–3.

  4. Ibid., pp. 253, 260.

  5. Eckstut and Eckstut, Secret Language of Color, p. 79.

  6. William Harrison, quoted in Sir G. Prance and M. Nesbitt (eds.), Cultural History of Plants (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 309.

  7. Ibid., p. 308.