History of Paint and Colour

Paint has been in use since prehistory. Evidence survives in early cave paintings and the ancient Chinese are considered to have brought its manufacture and use to a state of perfection tens of thousands of years ago; the painted decoration and hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians demonstrate later stunning examples. Paint is made up of a pigment, a binder to hold it together and appropriate thinners to make it easy to apply. Before the nineteenth century the word 'paint' was only applied to oil-bound types; those bound with glue were called 'distemper'. A vernacular alternative for farmhouses and cottages was 'lime wash' or 'colour wash'.

Chronological History

In antiquity Umbers, ochers and blacks were readily obtainable. For bright blue, red, yellow and green, semi-precious stones (lapis lazuli, cinnabar, orpiment and malachite) had to be obtained. New colours were also discovered - the first was 'Egyptian Blue'; 'Naples Yellow' dates from around 500 BC and 'red lead' was discovered by accident in about 2500. White lead occurred naturally but demand encouraged production of manmade versions. Vitruvius describes production of white lead and verdigris in the 2nd century AD.

Renaissance In the 16th century they discovered easier ways to extract the intense warm blue of lapis lazuli (ultramarine). Cobalt blue glass offered a brilliant sky blue, though this had to be scattered on wet paint or varnish to get the full effect. Pigments like 'Dutch Pink' and 'Crimson Lake' derived from certain berries and tree barks, were discovered in the New World. Cochineal was also discovered, produced by American Indians. Indigo was obtainable from dye works. The principal source of manmade white lead was Venice.

17th Century In the 1620's, the Dutch greatly increased availability of white lead and lowered cost by invention of the Stack Process. All white lead paints included chalk in their undercoats, reserving purer white lead for finish coats. Later in the century, 'vermilion', a manmade type of cinnabar, was developed, as was 'King's Yellow', a manmade type of orpiment.

18th Century The discovery of Prussian Blue provided a much needed intense deep blue, readily available after 1724. There was still no pigment resembling Spectrum Yellow and consequently no brilliant green other than that produced from arsenic. In 1778, a much less poisonous green was invented, 'Scheele's Green'. A break-through came in 1781 with Turner's Patent Yellow, though this still required varnish to preserve the colour.

19th century The real watershed in the search for a strong, light-fast yellow came with the discovery of water-resistant Chrome Yellow in 1818. Heating it produced 'Chinese Red' - the basis of Pillar Box Red. Mixtures of Prussian Blue and Chrome Yellow produced the well-known 'Brunswick Greens'. 'Cerulean', an aquamarine blue, and Gmelin's manmade ultramarine were discovered between 1821 and 1840, as was Alazarin Crimson. Using cast-iron paint mills and zinc-based pigments, industrialists produced the first washable paint marketed as 'Charlton White' in the 1870's. They also produced emulsions based on similar formulae, marketed as 'oil bound distempers'. By 1880 the new paints were readily available in tins, in a wide range of colours, and came to be exported all over the World.

The development of washable paints runs parallel to that of Portland cement, which enabled cavity construction and modern, watertight houses. The old paint-making tradition carried on until the Second World War, especially on estates where old buildings and conservative values survived. The apprenticeship training system came to be replaced by 'technical colleges' in the 1960's, and it was during this period that the petro-chemical companies promoted plastics paints (first introduced in the 1930's) which remain in general use today. By the 1980's, most of the craftsman painters of the old school were no longer with us and the few who remained were finding it difficult and often impossible to obtain the ingredients for making traditional materials. Because of modern production methods, materials had become superfine, which they found too dense and characterless.

The Real Paint & Varnish Company's founder, traditional building and conservation expert Peter Maitland Hood, having been educated in the materials and ways of the old tradition, began production on a commercial scale in 1985. Today the firm is well established as the principal source of the paints, varnishes and colours of the old tradition in Western Europe and the fountain of all knowledge on the subject.