Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

the product, a salesman motivated by the need for profit and immediate shortterm
customer satisfaction rather than long-term stability.
The evolution of the art nurket also brought with it an expansion of materials
available fo r sale, aided by advances in scientific fields that greatly expanded
the range of available pigments and dyestuffs. The artist's palette roughly doubled
in the nineteenth century, each decade bringing new colors, starting
with cobalt blue and lemon yellow. In the early part of the century, iodine
scarlet, chrome yellow, and emerald green were introduced; and, in the 1820s,
synthetic ultramarine became available. Zinc oxide (Chinese white) and viridian
came in the 1830s, and cadmium yellow and orange followed in the
1840s. The 1850s brought the aniline dyes, brilliantly colored and wildly
impermanent coal-tar derivatives. The 1860s saw the dawn of aureolin yellow,
chromium oxide green, synthetic alizarin, manganese violet, cerulean blue,
and so on (1). The colors produced by these new pigments were often dazzling,
but also alarmingly unstable.
Figure 2. William Holman Hunt sculpting a
model of Christ's head to aid him in the
painting