Material History of Humanity as told through Pigments

1. Humanity:
Communication, Materialism
& Demographics

2. How did we get from that…
Paleolithic
wall
markings,
Lascaux
Caves,
France,
Birdman &
Ox, 17,000
years ago.

3. ….to this?
Monet.
Grainstack
at Sunset,
1891,
Oil on Canvas,
Museum of fine
Arts,
Boston, MA

4. What element of art and design
are relevant to these artefacts?
Elements of Art:
Line
Shape
Space
Form
Colour
Value
Texture Principles of Design:
Balance
Unity
Composition
Repetition
Pattern
Contrast
Movement
Proportion/Scale
Emphasis

5. Compare & Contrast:

6. What element of art and design
are relevant to these artefacts?
E&P of Impressionistic Art:
Space, Form, Colour, Value, Texture, Balance, Unity,
Composition, Proportion/Scale, Light, Plein Aire
Art Theory & Practice Conditions:
The paint tube, the railway, interested in theories of
light and colour, to question normative behaviours,
emphasis on the “individual” “impression” of a
moment, questioned the “blackness” of shadows.
E&P of Paleo Art:
Line, Shape, Repetition, Pattern, Contrast,
Emphasis, Movement, Ritual, Communication,
Commemoration
Conditions:
Pre-agricultural, pre-city state, pre animal
husbandry, pre written text, no clay, no metal,
no cars =)

7. Compare & Contrast:
Birdman & Bull with Spear,
17,000 yrs old BCE
Monet, Haystacks Sunset, 1891
Why am I comparing these two?
Impressionist painters were the first painters to not mix their own
paints. They were also the first to use chemically manufactured
colours. Their palette was greatly expanded through industrialization.

8. What is Impressionism?
• An art movement
• Coincided with and a result of Industrialization
• 1870- 1890
• Emphasis on the play of Light on objects
• Interest in colour Theories
• Palette expansion through textile industry
• Painters are last to benefit from chemistry of textile colours expansion
• Pointillism – play of contrasts of colours off of each other
• Interaction between Colour and light
• Away from line and expressing boundaries through colour interactions
• Chose to mix colours instead of using black
• Increase in leisure time
• Technology gives people access to train rides into country
• Break with the “Academie” hierarchy, showing the average person doing
average things

9. What is Industrialization?
• Production line
• Steam engine
• Factory – mill – water power - Textiles
• Science – discovery – why
• Engineering – why not, systems – what might
go wrong?
• Technology – the how of things - tools – using
an object to expand potential – fire is a tool, a
computer is a tool – an integration of various
tools.

10. What is Industrialization?
• Industrialization implies large groups of people
who are on the move.
• Industrialization is a result of sharing many
different thoughts between many different
disciplines over many different years:
• Textiles
• Engineering
• Chemistry
• Weaving
• Metalurgy
• Infrastruture development
• Culture and values are also shared when people ideas.

11. Trade Routes
1500 Asia, Africa & Europe
What is being
Traded?
Silk, spices,
livestock, food,
stories, artifacts,
knowledge, math,
slaves, weapons,
diseases, culture,
relations, religions,
values, languages,
knowledge, scrolls…

12. Compare & Contrast:
Why am I comparing these two?
Birdman & Bull with Spear,
17,000 yrs old BCE
Monet, Haystacks Sunset, 1891
Because they are both evidence of human industriousness.
Both are considered “art.” They are different in many
ways. I would like you to consider in what ways they are
different and in what ways they are the same. Here are
some more examples on the following pages ….

13. Compare & Contrast:
Any number of ages and movements can be compared to
discuss the relative difference in values a society holds as
they are expressed through the arts.
Consider the art history spiral on the next page. It is an
interesting suggestion that a timeline does not need to be a
straight line.
The Renaissance is at the centre and the spiral deviates from
the realism that characterizes the ”progression” of styles at
the point where Impressionism makes its entrance.
Part of what happens in the mid 1800s is the development of
photography. Historians have argued that the hyper-realism of
photography made painting (and the arts) consider, “what can
we do that photography can’t do?”

15. Manet, Boating, 1874
Panel of the Lions,
Chauvet Caves,
France, 30,000 BCE.
Intro to Paleolithic Art,
at the Met Museum, NYC
Compare & Contrast:

16. Paleolithic Art
Bulls, Cave paintings,
Lascaux, France
17,000 years ago
Impressionism
Monet, Parc des Morceau, 1878
Compare & Contrast:

17. Are these both forms of
Communication?
Egyptian Hieroglyphs
& Monet’s,
House of Parliament, 1903
Compare & Contrast:

18. Bhimbetka Cave paintings,
India, 100,000-30,000 yrs ago
Degas, Dancer, 1880
Compare & Contrast:

19. Venus of Willendorf
28-25,000 yrs old
Cezanne, Bathers, 1873
Compare & Contrast:

20. Lascaux Horses, 17,000 yrs old
Cassatt, Maternal Caresses, 1890
Compare & Contrast:

21. Compare & Contrast:
Part of what happens in the mid 1800s is the development of
photography. Historians have argued that the hyper-realism of
photography made painting (and the arts) consider, “what can
we do that photography can’t do?”
One thing that painting did better than photography at the
time was colour. The other invention of the mid 1800s was the
paint tube. When populations get to a certain size, their
innovations multiply and the number of additional possible
innovations multiply. The nature of time itself feels like it
speeds up as the changes come so fast.
You were born into such a time, the age of the internet, that
has a similar state of hyper-productivity. Consider how many
images you may have seen in the last 24 hours.

22. How do you make a mark that lasts for
thousands of years?
• Did you know that Van Gogh got his
paints from his pharmacist.(He
probably shouldn’t have eaten them
though.) Many of the tools for mixing
pharmaceuticals and paints are still
the same.
• In the Rennaisance, painters such as
da Vinci would have mixed their own
paints from scratch. Alchemy was the science of the Renaissance.
Chemists were considered the lowest of the low though. Do you see the
link between cooking, colour and pharmacy? It was a stated agenda of da
Vinci to disassociate the fine artists from the craftsmen who were mixing
the paints. They were considered labourers and da Vinci wanted to raise
the status of the Fine Arts.
Again….DON’T EAT PAINTS....but here is how to make them.

23. How is paint made?
• Define terms.
• Pigment
• Binder
• Plasticizer
• Humectant
• Filler
• Water
• Learning by doing – understanding past
behaviours by recreating past behaviours.
• Associating these terms with your kitchen,
cooking and pharmaceuticals.

24. What are the proportions?
• Pigment = 20 – 50% of paint
• Vehicle = 35 – 65% of paint
• Binder - Gum Arabic
• Plasticizer - Glycerin
• Humectant – Corn syrup
• Filler – Corn strach
• Ratio of Pigment to Vehicle to Filler
• 2-4:(3:1:1):1
• 2-4 parts pigment to 1 part vehicle to 1 part filler
• Water = 15ish%

25. What is a Pigment?
• Chemical compounds
• Appealing colourful attributes
• Do not dissolve in water
(vs. a dye which does dissolve in water)
• Needs to be suspended in a vehicle
in order to be used for painting.
• Different pigments have different
amounts of chroma and need
different amounts of vehicle and
filler to be of use.
Anish Kapoor, Pigment Art, 1981

26. What is a Binder?
• Usually determines the name of the medium:
• Linseed oil = oil paints
• Wax = encaustic painting
• Egg Yolk = Egg Tempera
• Plaster = Fresco Painting
• Acrylic Polymer = Acrylic
• Gum Arabic = Watercolour

27. What is Gum Arabic?
• Main binder in watercolour - from the Acacia Tree
• Gum = pH neutral salt of acidic polysaccharides
(sugars or carbs – also used in soft drinks, processed food, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals)
• Gum is actually a weak binder – which means that other
ingredients need to be added in order to compensate
• But can be rewetted and
allows artists to manipulate
medium after it dries
• Drawbacks?
• Hard when dry.
• Bronzing
• Cracking & Flaking if thick,
undiluted or stuck in cracks.

28. What is a Plasticizer?
• Glycerin
• Buffers the Gum Arabic (about 20% of vehicle)
• Reduces brittleness
• Minimizes cracking and chipping
• Helps it dissolve in water
• Helps it not dry in tube
• Form of alcohol
• Acts as a mild binder in paints

29. Drawbacks of Gum Arabic
& Glycerin?
• They will dry out quickly
• Even if stored in tubes

30. What is an Humectant?
• Absorbs and retains water
(hygroscopic)
• Extend the paint drying
time
• Washes can be more easily
manipulated.
• Can increase the staining
effect
• Sugar Syrup (corn syrup)
or Honey
(honey is 14X more expensive)
• Too much can attract
insects and create mold

31. What is a Filler?
• Changes consistency from taffy to butter
• Reduces gloss (which also reduces possibility
of bronzing)
• Reduces undesired lift, blurring, bleeding -
adds more control to the painting process.
• Colourless
• Inert
• Thickens paint
• Subdues oversaturated pigments
• Reduces costs

32. Dextrin is a Filler
• Clear
• Gelatinous
• Wheat or corn starch
• Can also act as a binder
• Downsides?
• Paint can be too dull
• Matte finish
• Prone to flaking
• Student and lower grade paints are “shorted” with filler
• Hold their shape on the palette knife when cut
• Poster paints, student paints, guache

33. Water
• 15ish% of paint
• Excess water is needed in manufacturing
pigments and paints during the milling
process.
• Makes milling faster
• Less friction during milling = less energy
• Exploding paint from tube?
• Not enough aging before tubing
• Let the paint evaporate water before tubing

34. Again, what are the
proportions?
• Pigment = 20 – 50% of paint
• Vehicle = 35 – 65% of paint
• Binder - Gum Arabic
• Plasticizer - Glycerin
• Humectant – Corn syrup
• Filler – Corn starch
• Ratio of Pigment to Vehicle to Filler
• 2-4:(3:1:1):1
• 2-4 parts pigment to 1 part vehicle to 1 part filler
• Water = 15ish%

35. Where should we put all of
these ingredients?
• In a tube?
• Invention of the paint tube!
• John Rand – 1841
• The tube allowed artists to stay outside and work for longer.
• Before the metal paint tube, paints were stored in pig intestines.
• Once the small intestinal
pouch was punctured it could
no longer be sealed and the
paints would dry out.
• The metal tube allowed artists
to paint on location for longer
and return to the same
location repeatedly.

36. Big terms for big ideas
Let’s define some
words so we’re all
on the same page:
Art
Artifacts
Communication
Demographics
Materialism

37. Humans work. They are
industrious. They are natural
problem solvers. They harness
their environment.
In this lesson we are studying
colour and pigments as evidence
of human ingenuity. We have
compared the symbolic
communication of Paleolithic
cave paintings, 80 -10,000 years
ago, to Impressionism, 150 years
ago. Both are responses to the
materials in their environments.
They are evidence of how much
the materials and values have
changed.
A Study of Human Industriousness

38. What is Communication?
• What does it mean for you and your life today?
• Exchange of information
• Exchange of ideas
• Exchange of values
• Implies a community

39. What is Communication?
• What do you think it meant 40,000 years ago?
• Objects
• A thing
• Picture charades
• Symbolic
• Concepts vs. letters
• Concepts and sounds

40. What is Communication?
The Rosetta Stone:
• Commissioned in Egypt around
196 BCE
• Found in 1799 by a French
soldier on a Napoleonic
expedition.
• Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs,
Demotic script and
ancient Greek.
• First recovered bilingual text.
• Clearly meant to communicate across
cultures – over time and space.
• Attempt to consolidate power and
collective functionality.

41. What is materialism?
• What does it mean for you today?
• What do you think?
• ….
• Matter
• Stuff and things
• Wanting things
• …
• ....
• ....
• ...

42. What is Materialism?
• What do you think it meant 40,000 years ago?
• Resources
• Survival
• My rock is better than your rock
• My food
• Territory
• Repurposing one material for another use
• Tooooools
• TOOOOLS

43. Neolithic
Agricultural Tools

44. Paleolithic Stone Age ->
Neolithic Agricultural Tools
Paleolithic Age = 2.6 million to 10,000 BCE
• Ends at the end of the last ice age
• Explosion of Innovation in Humanity
• Agriculture
• Animal Husbandry
• Metal work
• Glass work
• Pottery in such quantities
that they allowed societies
to grow because of food
storage.
This explosion in innovation after
the last ice age is called the
Neolithic Age.

45. What are Demographics?
• What does it mean for you today?
• Population
• Census
• Who u r, what you do, where you live
• Movement of people, (where are they building
houses? Where have they stopped building?)
• Change
• Measuring values, needs, basic economic indicators
• Social fabric/landscape
• ....
• ...

46. Population over time.

47. What are Demographics?
• What do you think it meant 40,000 years ago?
• Regional
• Mortality, Children, Family
• Knowledge of elders
• Food & Water security
• Defences & Territory
• Stories
• Tradition
• Nomadic
• Superstitions & Rituals
• ….
• ...

48. What is an artifact?
• Old object
• Created by humans
• Gives insight into human behaviour at a time
about which we can only theorize
• In ancient Greece, the word “art,” was only
used with the following disciplines: Rhetoric,
poetry, drama.
• Everything else was craft and considered a
work of labour.

49. Transition from the symbolic communication
of Paleolithic artifacts, 80 -10,000 years
ago, to Impressionism,150 years ago.

50. What is art?
• What does it mean for you today?
• …...
• Consider before you progress to the next slide
• ......

51. What is art?
• What does it mean for you today?
• Something aesthetically pleasing?
• Something creative?
• Not craft? Not useful?
• Craft = Useful? Art = Useless?
• There is still a debate between the difference between art
and craft.
• Is art what you want it to be, subjective?
• Artisan as master
• Is it an exchange of idea? Or emotion?
• Is it an expression of the self, ”do I like it?”
You have the choice not to like it.
• Is it only what humans create? Does it have to be
purposefully made?
• Is it a visual synthesis of materials and values?
• Are we back in the realm of Symbolic meaning? =)? 8/ WTF?

52. We covered all of these topics.
Which of these interests you?
Pre-historic
Paleolithic
Neolithic
Printing Press
The Ages of Civilization
Pigment
Binder
Vehicle
Plasticizer
Humectant
Filler
Dye
Mordant
Synthetic Compounds
Ochers
Aboriginal palette
Signs & Symbols
Elements of Art
Principles of Design
Codes & Conventions
Industrial Revolution
Agricultural Revolution
Age of Exploration
French Revolution
Feudalism
Religion
Power
Trade Routes
Migration
Middle class
Population
Demographics
Rosetta Stone
Artifacts
Archeology
African Rock Art
Renaissance
Henry the Navigator
Impressionists
The Salon
Eduard Manet
Camille Pissaro
Claude Monet
Berthe Morisot
Edgar Degas
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Camille Pisssaro
Alfred Sisley
Mary Cassatt
John Singer Sargent
If you found
this part of
art history
interesting,
then you
could focus
on one of
these areas
for your
final unit.