Friday, November 17, 2017
Inside the Library That Holds the World’s Rarest Colors
www.artsy.net: I’m standing with conservation scientist Narayan Khandekar in a glass-ceilinged laboratory on the fifth floor of Harvard’s art museum, surrounded by paintings in various stages of analysis and repair. In front of us, a life-size portrait of King Philip III of Spain by 17th-century court artist Pantoja de la Cruz rests on an easel. From the monarch’s patterned pantaloons to his neatly combed hair, the work is painted almost entirely in shades of brown.
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Last summer, I was a lighting intern at the Smithsonian's Museum of African Art. One of the most interesting facets of museum lighting is its intersection with conservation. The amount of light appropriate for an object most of the time is determined by the conservators. The conservators consider not only the base material (I was told, for example, a good general rule was that paper or paper-based objects should get around 10 foot-candles) but also the pigment used to decorate the object. At the museum of African Art in particular, conservators were faced with the additional challenge of object being made from various organic materials (like animal hide, various feathers, etc.) and the conservation lab had to do tests to determine the proper display installation for various objects. I think the work that Harvard's pigment lab does is the most interesting facet of conservation: finding the intersection of art (and art history) and science.
The article is fascinating. I never really thought about this before in terms of the conservation of the pigments that make up the colors of the world. While the history of the collection is undoubtedly important, where it fails is that it doesn’t talk much, if any, about the efforts of conservationists in replicating these pigments so that we no longer need 10,000 mollusks to get the Tyrian Purple that may appear in a painting that is being restored. I also felt like this article was more about a history of Forbes than it is about the work of the pigment library. In terms of the practical application to the performing arts, the valued work of the researchers at the pigment library as described in the article and beyond could be of great service to those who seek out these very specific colors. Once pigment components are identified and catalogued and their blend of colors broken down, these numbers can then be translated into recreating a paint for your set or a new lighting gel for your stage. The possibilities at that point would be endless and being able to continually discover the chemical makeup of some of nature’s most vibrant colors would be a major game changer in design, art, and even architecture.
Dang, I never knew so much went into the creation of pigments for painting. Like what? Why would someone feed only mango leaves to cows in the name of creating the Indian Yellow pigment, or that you need ten thousand molluscs to create a single gram of Tyrian Purple!? That's absolutely insane! Yet, it happened. As the article explains, "if the color is available, the artists will use it.” I think that this statement speaks to a broader sense of resourcefulness among artists. Our job is to find ways to create representations of the world around us, often through illusion and creative thinking. As such, it's only natural that we've found ways to use what's on hand to create something truly magical. However, to get there, we need to understand how the materials we use interact with each other, not unlike the early work of this conservation lab.
I love reading about the mysteries discovered about different rare pigments. The article focuses a lot on the scientific research done to find out and discover the secrets of the pigments composition. It is interesting to read about the combined involvement of science and art. The combination reminds me a lot of what Carnegie Mellon likes to encourage, an involvement in both sciences and art to create something completely different and amazing. The scientist and art collector, Forbes, had a “dream [that] was to create a “laboratory for the fine arts,” one that applied scientific methods to the works of the Old Masters”. I also found it incredibly interesting to hear about some of the rarest pigments such as Mummy brown, that was made from crushed mummy bodies. Tyrian purple that was created from 10,000 mollusks to create a single gram of pigment. And Ultramarine which was created from Lapis Lazuli and was once considered more valuable than gold.
This is such a fascinating article. I had no idea he origin of certain pigments were so interesting or that we have huge collections of pigments stored away so we can confirm the authenticity of paintings. I think my favorite part of the article is all the old style jars with cork stops with meticulously written names. It sees so out of place for a 21st century research facility looking at really old pigment. You would think everything would be vacuum sealed and protected, but by the images it’s like walking into a medieval shop looking for some magical ingredient. I also love the stories that come out of the creation of pigment. Who goes around and says “do you know what would make a good yellow? Cow pee. Do you know what would make this even better yellow? If we only fed the cows mangos”. It’s so interesting to see how experimental and weird people are.
I kept thinking about the idea of a forgery verses reproduction throughout this article. It’s a difficult line because a good reproduction should imitate the original and not advertise that it is a reproduction, but the problem is when someone is trying to value it as an original.
That valuing sort of bothers me. Many artists have said that good art is in the eye of the beholder, but having the name of a famous painter on a work of art suddenly gives it more worth even if you do not like it. I’ve seen some works of art- especially prints, engravings, or other things that are very flat- and a reproduction would be just as good. I’ve also seen oil paintings that I have seen reproductions of for years and they have never spoken to me, but when I see the painting in person, there is so much more life and detail and feeling in the original that I understand why someone would value that more than a reproduction.
This is incredible. It is not often that we look at art and the means by which it is created in this manner. So much of art comes down to scene which is something that is often overlooked. In today’s world colors are so much more set and synthesized with the mass production pf paints. There is some level of variability that comes with each brand of paint and the manners in which artists approach using them, however artists as a whole have come to rely on the mass producer’s colors of Gamblin or Windsor-Newton and very few of us would have any concept of how to create lasting and archive-able paint on our own. In some ways this is helpful as there is less room for things to go wrong such as the experimental frescos of Leonardo Da Vinci which deteriorate more each day, but one might argue that this shift represents a loss in the depth of the art and it’s uniqueness.
This collection is fascinating for sure. Artists use a million different (sometimes with tiny nuances) colors to create their art and usually they would have a much sharper and sensitive eye of recognizing colors. What to ordinary human beings is just a red is actually a full spectrum of different reds and they all have very specific names. But it’s even more interesting to think that on top of this, the creation of color, the making of the paints is a whole other world where so much care and intricacy need to be taken to make just the right color. The Forbes Collection is indeed far more than just “a cabinet of curiosities” in that it contributes to deepening the very important conversations of art appreciation in the country. This library of rarest colors will become the heaven for artists and art lovers who will definitely be enchanted by those legendary origin stories, the anecdotes, the art pieces that contain the colors.
This was such a wonderful read! I took a class at my undergrad called Chemistry of Art and Artifacts, and this plays a lot into much of what we studied. I especially love that this collection is described as, "Historic it may be, but the Forbes Collection deals as much with the future of artworks as the past. It could almost be described as a conservator’s crystal ball: offering glimpses into the aging process for various pigments, binders, and any other materials that might make their way into a work of art." By analyzing what was used and how it has held up over time, allows artists today to fully understand what the lifetime of their work could be 100, 500, 700 years later. If they want to create a piece of artwork that lasts, science has gone into researching this. If they want to make a piece of art that mimics the old techniques, they can do that too (to some extent). For me, this paragraph was one of the most significant: "Khandekar once spent a “nice day” with Ellsworth Kelly “talking about how he paints, how he decides on color, about the issues of what’s the right color, what’s the right finish on the top—all these kinds of things.” That sort of information is invaluable to collect in the present because, as Khandekar wryly points out, “you can’t ask a dead artist a question. That’s why it’s important to get in there and ask all this stuff while you can.”" We should always ask questions and make sure we are recording methods for posterity.
This article is incredible! Not only was it so interesting because I never thought there would be a way to analyze and curate color that would not damage the paintings and preserve the hues for further analysis and viewing over time (especially since light is so damaging to them), it was also fascinating in its history and Forbes' pioneering of conservation in the U.S. The way science and art was melded in a way that would both preserve and study this amazing history is very impressive. Also, since artists throughout time had to often make due with whatever they could access for paints and pigments, this research could be potentially endless (and the fact that actual ground up mummies could have been used as paint is extraordinarily weird even for artists of the 17th century.) It's also good to hear that as we have moved into an ever-shifting and expanding realm of paints and pigments that the museum is trying to keep up with current advancements as well as they can.
The creation of pigment and colors are one of the most fascinating processes I have ever learned about. This article does a really good job of discussing the history of pigment composition, and the lengths that people have gone to discover those methods. The color awareness that some people seem to have has always blown my mind. I do my best to be conscious of the nuances of each color and the interactions that they have with other colors, but I am constantly learning about all of the little things that slip past me. I really appreciated the interdisciplinary nature of this practice. I am always curious about the way art interacts with mathematics and science, and this article is another one of the incredible ways that it happens. Another really interesting piece of this article is in the discussion about specific pigments, such as Mummy Brown and Tyrian purple, and the lengths that artists have gone to achieve their definitions of perfection.
The process behind the creation of colored pigment is endlessly interesting to me. I personally have always been very interested in where the materials i use to make art come from, so seeing such a detailed record of their origins is fascinating. I have always daydreamed about making my own pigments someday, when I have the time and resources, so reading about the deep historical and cultural context associated with colors only piques this interest further. I believe the use of color made by hand could enhance and enrich my work to an elevated level of creativity, as I personally like to use materials completely purposefully if I have a choice. I would love to visit this exhibit someday, or talk to someone skilled with making color, as this is definitely an area of expertise I would be interested in exploring further.
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