Earth's Natural Palette (part 2)

blue minerals

Blue

Lapis lazuli is a semi-precious stone containing the blue mineral lazurite. The brilliant blue crystals of lazurite produce a deep vivid blue colour when ground to a pigment. The refinement of this rare blue mineral produced the rich colour called 'ultramarine', which became the most valuable painting material in the world. By the late 13th century artists were regularly using ultramarine, though they often complained at its cost. Into the 19th century it became so costly that artists rarely used it, turning instead to other pigments such as the mineral azurite, or the synthetic blues becoming available at that time.

Use of this pigment can be found in some of the earliest artworks we have here at the Ferens gallery, such as Battista Salvi's 'Holy Family with Two Female Saints', and Cavaliere D'Arpino's 'The Transfiguration'. Since the 19th century ultramarine paint has been artificially manufactured.

Azurite was a much cheaper mineral than lazurite, and as a result its use was less restricted. It produces a blue pigment which tends to have a greenish tinge. This is because azurite is a copper mineral like the green mineral malachite, with which it is frequently found. Many Renaissance artists used azurite, including Michelangelo. It was used until the 18th century when new synthetic blue pigments provided better alternatives.

Yellow and Orange

The bright and cheery colours of yellow and orange have a dangerous natural mineral source. The mineral orpiment has been used throughout history to produce a golden-yellow pigment by the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Chinese, the Romans, and throughout the medieval period up to the 19th century. However, orpiment is one of the most toxic minerals in the world, beaten in toxicity only by the mineral realgar. They are often found to occur together in hot springs.

Both orpiment and realgar are compounds of the poisonous element arsenic. Artists grew to dislike using these minerals due to the effects it had on them, and added cautious warnings to their instructions on how to mix these pigments. By the 18th century orpiment and realgar were rarely seen in the artist's paint box, with synthetic pigments being favoured instead. It is thought possible that the use of arsenic-bearing pigments and pigments from other toxic minerals could have contributed to the illnesses of some artists, such as Van Gogh's mental illness and Monet's blindness.

Green

Malachite is a copper compound and is possibly the oldest known green pigment used. It is crushed, ground and washed to produce a bright green colour, often with a bluish tint. Malachite was popular with the Ancient Egyptians and has been found in many of their tomb paintings. They even used it on their eyelids as green eye shadow. Malachite has been used throughout the centuries since, featuring in all periods of European painting up to the 19th century. Artificially produced green pigments largely replaced the use of this mineral after the 19th century.

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