PAINTING MATERIALS
quelin, first announced the discovery of the new metal, chromium. This was an
important event in pigment history because from that element, which so ap-
propriately gets its name from the Greek word5 xpcojita, meaning color, are derived
more pigments and a greater color range than from any other single element. In
his memoir of 1809 (see Chrome Yellow), he first described some of these new
chromium compounds which later were to become useful as pigments. In the XIX
century, nearly every decade was marked by the discovery of some such com-
pound that later became a pigment. Some of them remained useless, scientific
curiosities for years before they were finally put into production. Conspicuous
developments were the discovery of cadmium yellow by Stromeyer in 1817, of
artificial ultramarine by Guimet in 1824, and of viridian in 1838. These increased
the color range of the artists' palette and, in some cases, added to its permanence.
The artist was now independent of the costly and uncertainly available mineral
pigments like genuine ultramarine and azurite.
A new epoch in the history of pigments began in 1856 when William Perkin in
England announced the preparation of the first synthetic dyestuff, mauve.
Although many of the dyes or so-called ' coal tar ' colors that soon followed were
taken up with enthusiasm by artists, they soon received a bad .name for lack of
permanence. It is only in recent years that synthetic dyestuff lake colors have
been prepared which vie with mineral colors in stability and permanence, and
even today the number is very limited. The last half of the XIX century was not
notable for development of new inorganic pigments. Lithopone was first produced
in the 1870*3, but did not become general as an artists* pigment. Since the begin-
ning of the XX century, however, there have been some important additions. The
first of these, the cadmium reds, that now somewhat displace time-honored ver-
milion, came along about 1910. They were followed by the titanium oxide pig-
ments about 1920. Most recent additions to the organic pigments are the blue and
green copper phthalocyanines, and in the inorganic class are molybdate orange
and manganese blue.
Since about 1850 first dissemination of knowledge of new pigments and dye-
stuffs has come from the patent literature. Dozens of patents on pigments and
dyestuffs are now taken out every year, but most of them are concerned with
improvements and variations in methods for manufacturing long-established
materials. Although artists are still conservative in accepting new painting
materials, the interval between discovery of a new color and acceptance for
artists* purposes is much shorter than it was formerly. Today the artist has a
greater range and variety of durable pigment materials to choose from than at any
time in history.
Several attempts have been made to show by graphic methods or in tabular
form the history and periods of uses of the principal pigments. Laurie, the first
to do this, presented the results of the identification of pigments of illuminated
manuscripts of various countries in tabular form so that the data could be readily