Why Colors You See in an Art Museum Can’t Be Replicated Today

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Why Colors You See in an Art Museum Can’t Be Replicated Today
A look into the history of the pigments used in spectacular art
By Victoria Finlay
smithsonian.com
November 14, 2014

(excerpt)

“We’ve been desperately trying to find someone who can handblow glass unevenly,” she said. “But they’re all too good. We haven’t found anyone yet.”

Yet it is this uneven surface, and the impurities that were mixed with the coloring elements—cobalt for blue, manganese for purple, gold for pure red—that make the shimmers that have captivated me for years, going back to that day at Chartres.

The stories of colors burst with improbable details. Vivid red comes from cochineal, extracted from South American bugs whose brilliant red pigment was once so valuable that people danced in the streets when they arrived twice a year into the port of Seville. Lead white—now banned for toxicity in the U.S.—was derived from lead corroded through contact with acid and manure. Prussian blue was created by accident when an alchemist tried to make red. And all the “coaltar” colors with which most of our clothes are dyed today were discovered by a teenager who made a mistake in his chemistry homework.

There is a common thread in the whole history of color in art, as I saw in those cathedral windows that first started me on this lifelong journey: the vital role played by imperfection, accident, and vulnerability in the striving for perfection. The windows of Chartres were made 800 years ago by itinerant craftsmen who traveled from cathedral to cathedral, living close to forests to have ample supplies of wood, and who no doubt told stories as they made their bumpy glass, full of dust motes and bits of leaves—imperfections that make it all the more glorious....

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-colors-you-see-art-museum-cant-be-replicated-today-180953332/#XxBA28p4cHlLkBpx.99