When it comes to the names of pigments, I find that the more unusual the name, the better the story. I search for these odd names and relish them like a gem collector who finds a precious stone. Names like Ackerman’s Yellow, Field’s Carmine and Davy’s Grey come to mind. What are the origins of these unusual pigment names? Who manufactured these pigments? What artists purchased them and what pictures contain them?
Pigments tell a backhanded story about their inventors, region of origin, manufacturers’ dreams, and a marketer’s hope. I’m particularly attracted to pigment names that are incorporated with the inventor’s name, such as Leithner’s Blue. Was it hard work, shrewd advertising, pride—or vanity—that drove the inventor to incorporating a family name into the colorant?
It seems that often the invention of a process is the influencing factor in naming a pigment. Take lead white, as an example. This pigment exists as a colorant in documents dating from the 1st century BC. Lead white has a fascinating history of manufacture as well as use. It spans the breadth of both the industrial and artistic world. While today it’s used nearly exclusively as an artist’s pigment, in the past it was ubiquitous for all manner of color and coating. If we look at it from the perspective of the past, we see a material that’s dense and opaque, mixes well with oil, has protective properties, and is perfect for tinting with other colorants or application by itself.
Many of the aliases for lead white indicate the city or region where it was manufactured. Cremnitz White, derived from the name of the Austria town (Krems), where the process was developed to produce the pigment, was probably the most popular. Berlin White, Dutch White, French White, Hamburg White, Nottingham White, London White and Vienna White indicate that Krems, Austria, did not have a lock on the production of lead pigment. New processes of taking dull metallic lead, combining it with acetic acid and finishing it with carbonic acid to create lead carbonate were engineered in a variety of fascinating ways. Most of us who have a passing interest in pigments know the story of taking lead sheets (or buckle-shaped masses of lead) and exposing them to vinegar in a closed container that’s surrounded by manure. There were many variations on this practice, in the attempt to create the best method of transforming elemental lead into lead carbonate. Most processes, however, were incomplete. The goal therefore was to adjust the manufacturing process in order to convert the highest percentage of lead to lead carbonate.
The lead white pigments that attract my attention are the ones with unusual names like Bartlett Lead, Freeman’s non-poisonous lead white, and Condy’s White Lead. To uncover the secrets of these paints’ origins requires a fair bit of investigation. Some of these lead whites may have made a fortune for their manufacturers, while others barely allowed their makers to scrape out a meager yearly profit. However, one thing is certain. None of them is being manufactured or in common use today. The lead white industry services a few specialty plastics and the art materials industry. Lead paints’ most notable use was as a coating for bridges.
The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco was originally painted with a red lead primer and a lead topcoat. New York’s bridges spanning the boroughs were all painted with lead based paints. Today, zinc primers with epoxy, urethane or latex final coats have taken the place of the traditional lead coatings.
Lead paints will never have the status or use they once secured. We’re all far better off for it! Nonetheless, they still are among the first choices for many artists, who would find it hard to paint without lead white and shudder to think that someday it may disappear. What do you think about the continued use of lead paint for artists?
In addition:
As a metal, lead is soft, malleable, ductile, easily fusible, dense and dull medium-gray in color. It is used in containers for corrosives or radioactive materials; it is no longer a component in pencils and most gasolines. The ancient Chinese, the Etruscans and the Roman added lead to bronze when they cast sculptures. Lead carbonate is a poisonous white amorphous powder, PbCO3, used as a paint pigment.
To read more about lead paint or to find answers to questions on other art materials, search The Artist’s Magazine’s Technical Q&A site at
www.artistsmagazine.com/tam_qna.asp.
The great and tormented Spanish painter Francisco Goya (http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/goya/) may have suffered from lead poisoning, according to Janis Tomlinson, the author of a prize-winning biography, Francisco Goya y Lucientes (Phaidon, 1994, 1999). To read a doctor’s conflicting diagnosis of what ailed Goya, visit
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/
query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10541154&dopt=Abstract
To read commentary on a few of Goya’s last, “Black Paintings” which he painted on the walls of his home, go to
dametzdesign.com/goya.html.
Other artists posthumously diagnosed with lead toxicity are Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-90)
www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gogh/) and the Candido Portinari (Brazilian, 1903-62) (
www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/portinari_candido.html).
Krems, Austria, where Cremnitz White originated, is today a locus for cutting-edge art. Danube University's Department for Applied Cultural Studies offers a master of arts degree in MediaArtHistories, a two-year, low-residency program that “provides students with deeper understanding of the most important developments of contemporary art: the latest, most controversial software, interface developments, computer animation, net art, interactive, telematic and genetic art, as well as the most recent reflections on bio and nano art, CAVE installations, augmented reality and locative media.” To learn more, visit
www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/002145.html