the ancient art of making colors

the reason why the making of pigments, the coloring and the painting were not any longer seen as a magical art became so, due to that the magical aspect of colors got lost. they ( making of pigments, coloring and painting ) developed to a solid handwork.

during the middle ages and the antiquity, wearing of colors was in particular connected with global power and rank.

colored cloths were very expensive :

because that the making of pure colors like purple and cochenillered, lapis lazuli, or indigo-blue, yellow and black burnt out of ivory was incredible expensive.

rich and poor people :

that was why colored cloths, things and buildings argued to richness. poor people were forced to be satisfied with simple, dull earthtones. to set an example, the roman emperor was the jewellery of a purpure-colored toga reserved. whereas, on the other hand, the colsuls were allowed to wear only purpure-colored borders at their coats.

purpure :

the color purpure, a very marvellous red-violet color, was connected to the majesty and the state of the god jupiter. the production of that color caused enormous costs. the human beings won this color from a gland of snails. these snails were called purpure snails. however, each of these snails produced only few milligrams of that luxuriously substance. for one piece of clothing were hundreds of thousands snails needed, which had specially to be imported. the profitable purpure-trade was controlled by phoenician merchants. this raw material ( purpure ) became an important political factor.

lapis lazuli :

in the antiquity, lapis lazuli was seen as another exclusive dye. the raw material consisted of blue colored gemstones, which were powdered to be mixed, later on, with oil and varnish. the result was a blue-colored paste which was extraordinary pure-colored and had a strong color resistiveness.

indigo :

due to caravans which were wandering from india on the silk road another legendary shade of blue came to the occident. the color is called indigo which is like dark-blue colour crystals with a shade of violet. a shrub gave the raw material for that color. people used the leaves of that shrub which they fermented. later, the people acidified the fermented leaves with urine. after the evaporation of the liquidity was it finally possible to gain the coveted color particles which were blue like the midnight.

indian yellow :

the so-called indian yellow was a pale yellow-colored colorant which is famous for its brilliance and color resistiveness. the production of this color was, like it was so often, kept under wraps, but bit by bit people have learned what the answer to the secret was : the truth was rather profane. it is a matter of urine crystals. to gain this color, people had solely to feed their beefs with mango leaves and also with unripe mango fruits and what they also had to do was to kept back drinkable water. thereby the urine of these animals became yellow, but these procedures were rarely survived by the animals.

ivory black :

another luxury color of former times was the so-called ivory black. ivory black is a deep black color which never gets faded. ivory black was won from elephant teeth which carbonized slowly in the fire with a bit of air supply.

cochineal :

cochineal, a brilliant color, was another famous and expensive color which is related to carmine red. once, cochineal, the red pigment, was the main component of lipsticks. however, the formula seems to be a bit odd. it seemed therefore a bit odd, because people gained this intensive red color namely from small shield lices which were living on cactuses. therefore, it was necessary to collect the lices then to dry them and finally to kibble them. but while collecting people had to pay attention which ones they were collecting, because only the female ones were used to produce this color.

history of colors :

when you pay attention to the history of these old and traditional colors, you can notice that the total of all colors was extremely expensive. they were partly gained from ivory or from gemstones what made them so expensive as like they had a value of gold. to manufacure the colors in the right color shades was very hard. that means to produce brilliant colors which have resistiveness and not to produce gloomy earth or fade pastel shades which could possibly bleach out during the washing or resting in the sun. people only had great interest in only some of these colors, which corresponded to the highest standards. highly coveted were only pure and saturated colors.

therapy of color of karl ryberg mosaik verlag 1992 page 24-26