Color is a wonderful thought provoking subject, and one that's been around for 20,000 years, as evidenced by early cave paintings. Throughout history, cultures have ascribed deep means religious and non religious to almost all colors. For every region and age, pigments and dyes were produced.
In particular, the Chinese of Asia especially the Han were thought to manufacture and perfect the use of color tens of thousands of years ago. The Chinese were also among the first to practice Color Healing with recorded "diagnoses" in a chronicle that was 2,000 years old, called, "The Nei/ching."
Egypt is another region known for its use of color. Modern
commercial paintingis inspired by the technical achievements of the Egyptians. The ancient Egyptians believed color to have magical healing properties. The ancient Egyptians developed yellow, orange, and red paints from pigments found in the soil.
Prior to the 19th century, the term, "paint," was only applied to the oil-bound kinds; the kinds bound with glue were called "distemper." By 1,000 BC, the development of paints and varnishes from acacia tree gum or, gum Arabic was developed. New colors were being discovered during this time, and umbers, ochers, and blacks were readily available.
Painting as an art form was established in Crete and Greece around 1500 BC. It was during this time that the Romans acquired Egyptian color skills. The Romans created the color purple, made using a pound of royal purple dye that required the crushing of 4,000,000 mollusks. The Egyptians created the first new color during this period, known as "Egyptian Blue."
"Naples Yellow" was discovered around 500 BC. To make Genuine Indian Yellow, it had to be sent to London for purification after mixing mud with concentrated cow urine. Sap Green came from the Blackthorn berry, and Sepia Brown from the dried ink sac of squid.
Plato made one of the earliest color discoveries in mixing two colors together, producing a third. The manufacture of color was thus changed.
Even though color was an obviously important and at times, religious aspect in many cultures, none of these groups named very many colors. In the 1960s, two anthropologists conducted an international study of color naming. Often times, many languages would only have two color terms, meaning white light and black dark. These anthropologists studied 98 languages, and discovered that the largest number of basic color terms were in English, in which we have eleven: white, black, red, yellow, green, orange, blue, pink, purple, grey, and brown. The other millions of color names are "borrowed;" i.e., grape, peach, gold, avocado, tan, watermelon, etc.
What makes up paint is pigment, which is a binder that holds it together. Paint is easily applicable with the right thinners. 5,000 years ago, the first synthetic pigment was made by the Egyptians from grinded down blue grass, called "Blue Frit."
Pigment color depended on grown in or European or similar temperate regions indigenous dyestuffs before the 16th century. "Natural" dyestuffs were available from 1550 – 1850, but the range of available dyestuffs was extended with tropical dyestuffs from Indian, Central America, etc.
Between 600 BC – AD 400, the Romans and Greeks produced varnishes. Red dye was considered more valuable than gold in another culture across the ocean. The culture was the Aztec civilization, and they practiced Color Healing as well.
"Cochineal red" was discovered by the Aztecs and made using the female cochineal beetle. One pound of water-soluble extract required about a million insects. The Spaniards introduced red to Europe in the 16th century.
"Red lead" was discovered by accident around 2500. White lead occurred naturally, but demand increased manmade reproductions Vitruvius, a Roman writer, engineer, and architect, describes white lead production in the 2nd century AD. By the 17th century, the Dutch exponentially increased white lead availability and lowered the cost by inventing the "Stack Process," a chemical process that casts metallic lead as thin buckles, stacks them up and leaves them for four to sixteen weeks, which turns the blue-grey lead to white lead all white lead paints have chalk in their undercoats; purer white lead is reserved for finish coats.
Henry Perkins discovered the first real synthetic dye, "Mauveine," in 1856. This brought about the revelation that many dyes could be made synthetically and inexpensively. From that point, linseed oil started being mass produced as well as pigment-grade zinc oxide or, white paint.
The first washable paint was produced using cast-iron paint mills and zinc-based pigments in the 1870's, and it was called "Charlton White." The first ready-mixed paint was patented by D.R. Averill of Ohio in 1867, but it didn't pass to catch on.
For ten years, Sherwin Williams tried to perfect a formula in which fine paint particles would remain suspended in linseed oil. In 1880, they finally succeeded simply by a formula was developed that greatly exceeded the available paint qualities during that time period. Emulsions based on similar formula were then produced and marketed as "oil bound distempers." The new paints became available in tins that same year, in a wide array of colors and were exported all over the world.
And the rest is history – today, we have thousands and thousands of colors to choose from from many different paint manufacturers. Colors and their background history have never been more timely or fascinating.