﻿ Pigments through the Ages - Introduction


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A modern pigment shop in Venice, Italy, where the "traditional" painter can buy pigments to mix into paints themselves.

A turn-of-the-century merchant Mabille, who traded under the name Au rapin, c. 1905.

Paintings are made from mud and a stick with hairs...



In a microscope, we see that paintings and other painted objects consist simply of pigments suspended in a substance – like chips in a chocolate chip cookie. The "substance" can vary, from oil or egg yolk in paintings, to plaster in frescos, or sophisticated plastics in automobile finishes. Moreover there are many interesting relationships between pigments (the focus of this exhibit) and dyes, and even with the "visual pigments" found in our own eyes.