The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair is a coffee table art book I’ve had for over a year. Recently, I decided to seriously read it from cover to cover instead of flipping through and reading random sections. St. Clair separated the color spectrum, then shared interesting, charming or bizarre two- to three-page stories about color names and their origins. Here are some of my favorite anecdotes.
White
In the late 1800s, whitewash (limestone, calcium chloride and water) was used to disinfect streets and buildings during a plague in Hong Kong and an influenza outbreak in Britain. “Is it a coincidence that it was around this time that white coats were adopted by doctors, and would become a visual symbol of the medical profession?”
Orange
Orange is the signature color of fashion brand Hermès. Initially, the company’s color was cream. Due to manufacturing shortages of the color cream during World War Two, Hermès selected mustard-colored packaging as a replacement. But then mustard ran out. The company “had no choice but to use the last paperboard color available: orange.”
* not my image
* not my scarf
The House of Orange is the name of the Dutch dynasty. When the Dutch flag was created, its original colors were blue, white and orange - the final color paying homage to the royal family. “Try as they might, no one could find a dye sufficiently colorfast: the orange stripe would either fade to yellow or deepen to red. By the 1660s, the Dutch gave up and began using red instead.” Hence the current colors on the flag of The Netherlands.
Purple
Archil is a dark red-purple dye made from ground-up lichens. In the 1500s, the powder was mixed with ammonia and kneaded, then kept in a warm room anywhere from 28 to 70 days. “For much of the period that archil was produced, the most readily available source of ammonia was putrid human urine.” One: who tested and discovered this recipe?! Two: was it kneaded by hand?! Without gloves? Without running water and antibacterial soap to use afterward?
* image from Isabella Whitworth. Lichen and the finished dyed product.
Blue
Han van Meegeren was an artist and art dealer in The Netherlands. In 1945, he was arrested for collaborating with Nazis, including his sale of a Vermeer painting to a German collector. Van Meegeren denied the charge and countered with a big reveal: he forged all the paintings he sold (for an amount equivalent to $33 million today). Initially, art professionals refused to believe him. After lots of research and examination, art historians discovered cobalt blue pigment in Van Meegeren’s paintings. Cobalt blue was a synthetic pigment created in 1802 as a substitute for ultramarine. The problem? Vermeer’s “paintings” were from the 1600s. Van Meegeren was found guilty of forgery, not collaboration.
The Allegory of Painting (Dutch: Allegorie op de schilderkunst) by Johannes Vermeer
Green
Verdigris forms on copper and bronze when either metal is exposed to oxygen, water, carbon dioxide or sulfur. Think of the Statue of Liberty. (It was initially reddish brown.) Ironically, the color has different names with connections to very different countries. Verdigris is French for “green from Greece” yet its German Grünspan translates to “Spanish green.”
* not my image
Ireland was inspired by France when designing its tricolor flag. “The green symbolized the Catholic nationalists, orange the Protestants and white the peace it was hoped would reign between them.”
In 1775, Swedish scientist Carl Wilhelm Scheele was studying arsenic and realized the green compound could be used as a pigment or dye. “It went into production almost immediately and the world fell in love with it.” From clothing to drapes and wallpaper to tinting candy and cake frosting. About a century later, people began reporting illness and death - from arsenic poisoning.
Farrow & Ball still calls the color Arsenic. “We painted the baby’s room Arsenic!” Hmmm…
Black
My favorite quote from the section: “While black is so often linked with endings, it is present at the start of things too… dreams blossom only when we close our eyes to shut out the light.”