Pigments through history

Iron-rich clays are the oldest paints there are: cave painters used them, and so has nearly every painter since. They're cheap, permanent and easy to handle, which is why they're still the backbone of most palettes.

Found inSelf-Portrait at the Age of 34, Rembrandt

Charred bone gives a soft, slightly bluish black. Once made from ivory offcuts, it's now made from bone. Next to warm colors it reads as a cool blue, the trick behind the Zorn palette.

Found inSelf-Portrait at the Age of 34, Rembrandt

Soot collected from burning oil or resin: the black of ancient inks. It's a very strong, slightly warm black that dries slowly in oil.

Made by corroding lead with vinegar fumes, it was the only good white for over two thousand years. It dries fast to a tough, flexible film that painters still prize, but it is toxic, and few makers still sell it.

Found inSelf-Portrait at the Age of 34, RembrandtThe Milkmaid, VermeerThe Gare St-Lazare, Monet

Mercury sulfide: first ground from the mineral cinnabar, later made by heating mercury with sulfur. For centuries it was the only strong, opaque scarlet. It's toxic, expensive, and can darken in light; cadmium red and pyrrole red have mostly replaced it.

Found inSelf-Portrait at the Age of 34, RembrandtThe Gare St-Lazare, MonetA Wheatfield, with Cypresses, Van Gogh

A transparent red dyed onto a mineral base from the root of the madder plant. Glazed over other colors it gave old master reds their depth. It fades in strong light, and its colorant was the first natural dye ever made synthetically (see alizarin).

Ground from lapis lazuli mined in Afghanistan, where it was painted in cave temples by the 7th century. In Renaissance Europe it cost more than gold, and contracts specified how much a painter had to use. Today's PB29 is almost always the synthetic version (see below).

Found inThe Milkmaid, Vermeer

Lead antimonate, a warm, opaque, pale yellow known from ancient glass and common on palettes from the 1700s. Genuine Naples yellow is toxic and rare now; most tubes with the name are hues mixed from white and other yellows.

Discovered by accident in Berlin by a color maker trying to make a red. The first modern synthetic pigment: deep, cheap and enormously strong. By the 1830s it had reached Japan, where it gave Hokusai's prints their blues.

Found inThe Great Wave off Kanagawa, Hokusai

One of the first cobalt colors, a pale, weak green that was always expensive. It's still made, but mainly for its gentle, cool tint.

Invented in Paris by Louis Jacques Thénard as a stable replacement for smalt and expensive ultramarine. A clean, cool blue that became an Impressionist favorite for skies and shadows.

Found inThe Gare St-Lazare, MonetA Wheatfield, with Cypresses, Van Gogh

In 1824 France offered a prize for a way to make ultramarine; Jean-Baptiste Guimet won it in 1828. Chemically the same as lapis, at a tiny fraction of the cost, it put the most precious blue on every palette.

Found inThe Gare St-Lazare, MonetA Wheatfield, with Cypresses, Van Gogh

A clean, cool, non-toxic white, first sold to artists as a watercolor in 1834 and later in oil. Van Gogh used it everywhere. Thick layers of pure zinc white can become brittle and crack over time, so many painters prefer it mixed with titanium.

Found inA Wheatfield, with Cypresses, Van Gogh

Cadmium was discovered in 1817, and its bright, opaque yellows were in artists' tubes by the 1840s. Munch used it in The Scream, where scientists found early cadmium yellow breaking down in damp air. Modern cadmium pigments are far more stable.

Found inThe Scream, Munch

A transparent, cool, emerald-like green made from chromium, patented in Paris. Safer and steadier than emerald green, it became a staple of Monet's and Van Gogh's greens and skies.

Found inThe Gare St-Lazare, MonetA Wheatfield, with Cypresses, Van Gogh

The first stable violet pigment, delicate and expensive. Monet loved it. Early versions contained arsenic; today's are cobalt phosphate.

A cobalt and tin blue, sold to artists from 1860 under the name coeruleum. Opaque and slightly green, it's the classic sky blue, and part of Monet's blues in The Gare Saint-Lazare.

Found inThe Gare St-Lazare, Monet

Cobalt yellow: a transparent, cool yellow popular with watercolorists. It's prone to fading and darkening in oil, and most painters now use a transparent arylide or nickel azo yellow instead.

Viridian's opaque cousin: a dull, sage green that is extremely permanent and covers well.

Two German chemists worked out how to make madder's colorant, alizarin, from coal tar: the first natural dye ever made in a lab. It quickly replaced madder. It fades in thin layers, and quinacridones and pyrroles now do its job better.

Among the first organic pigments made for paint: clean, bright and non-toxic. Better versions now rival cadmium yellow for lightfastness.

Cadmium selenide finally gave painters a strong, opaque red that didn't darken like vermilion. It has been the standard warm red ever since, though pyrrole reds now offer a cadmium-free alternative.

The brightest, most opaque white, and non-toxic. It went into paint in the 1920s and is now by far the most common white on artists' palettes.

Copper phthalocyanine, launched in 1935 (the green followed in 1938): intensely strong, transparent and very lightfast. A little goes a long way: a touch tints a whole pile of white.

Transparent, lightfast magentas, roses and violets that finally gave painters a permanent replacement for alizarin and madder.

Developed in the 1970s and on the market in the 1980s; PR254 is famous as the red of Ferrari paintwork. Opaque, brilliant and lightfast, it's the main cadmium-free red.