Four tall color swatches, grouped as dug up or charred: red and yellow (iron earths), black (charcoal) and white (chalk). Beside them, a blue swatch for Egyptian blue, made in a furnace from sand, lime, natron and copper.

History · The Painter's Colors

Earth and Fire: The First Palettes

The first palettes held what could be dug up or charred: red and yellow iron earths, black charcoal and white chalk.

Fire also made Egyptian blue, at right, the oldest known synthetic pigment: a new compound cooked in a furnace, not dug up. It is very stable, though a binder that yellows around it changes how it looks.

  • At Blombos Cave in South Africa, a kit for mixing red ochre paint is about 100,000 years old.
  • Egyptian blue fell out of use in the Middle Ages; Raphael's Galatea fresco (1511–12) is a rare late use.

See

Image: Made for this site · Original work

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