Archive note: This text comes from the old archive of Nomika Epilekta and is preserved with care for historical and informative reading.

When we visit an ancient temple today or examine marble statues in an Archaeological Museum, we are given the mistaken impression that art in ancient Greece was colorless. On the contrary, color in antiquity played a particularly important role and was not limited only to painting. Many creations of the ancients, such as clay figurines, majestic temples and marble statues, were decorated with intense colors, because the ancients knew that distance, like time, weakens the tone of colors. The impression we receive today is therefore completely different from the one ancient viewers had, because the colors of the works have now been lost. We often hear about the famous four-color system of the ancients, which was also supported by philosophical thought. The ancients believed in four colors, and their basic colors were red, yellow, black and white. By mixing these colors they greatly expanded their chromatic range. Ancient Greek painting is the least known expression of ancient Greek art, because its fragile materials are the main reason why, with few exceptions, it has not survived to our day. The most important witnesses today are wall paintings. The colors used by painters from antiquity belonged to two categories, natural colors (chemical elements, minerals and plant derivatives) and artificial colors, and they were used in powder form. To turn them into powder, a slab of marble or Egyptian porphyry was needed, together with a smaller stone, such as a sea pebble, as a grinder. The colors were mixed with the binder and were usually kept in shells. Depending on the use, the binder could be a glue or a sticky organic substance such as animal glue or fish glue, or it could come from plant secretions such as gum arabic. Another possible version was a strong sticky substance made from milk or sour milk, the so-called casein. Egg yolk or egg white, as well as beeswax, also served as excellent binders. The main colors used were the following:

White colors: The most important white color was lead white. Although it occurs in nature in the form of the mineral cerussite, it was one of the first pigments made artificially from metallic lead and vinegar. Pliny reports that the most famous workshop was in Rhodes. Its use continued until the 18th century, but it was poisonous and blackened over time, so it was later replaced by zinc white (zinc oxide) and then by titanium oxide. Melian earth is also a white color found naturally among rocks, and the best was found on Melos, from which it took its name. Chalk (calcium) was also used as a white color.

Black colors: Black is carbon, charcoal, the most important chemical element used as a color. It was obtained by burning bones, while the best black came from burned ivory. Black was also obtained from burning wood. The best charcoal was considered to come from young vine shoots. Charcoal was used in the form of thin rods for drawing. To be used as a color, it was turned into powder. Good-quality black came from peach stones and almond shells. Another black was fumo, soot, which became ink when mixed with gum. To produce it, a flame was allowed to play under a cold surface, and the soot that accumulated on that surface was collected. The flame was usually created from a beeswax candle.

Yellow colors: The yellow colors widely used were ochres, yellow earths derived from iron rust. Another dark yellow color is raw sienna, which comes from the earth and took its name from the city of Siena, where it was found. Saffron, zaffura, was also used to produce yellow color. Red colors: Iron oxides were used as red colors. Deposits of hematite were considered an important source for red pigment. A red ochre known since antiquity is sinopia (Fe2O3), which owes its name to the city of Sinope on the Black Sea, from where the best quality came. Excellent quality also came from the caves of Lemnos and Cappadocia. A red tending toward orange is sandarac, a natural mineral color, arsenic sulfide (As2S2), which was used until the 19th century. One of the bright red colors is cinnabar or vermilion (HgS), produced from mercury after repeated burnings with sulfur. Another red color is coarse red, derived from iron rust. Red lakes of organic origin were also used, such as lake from Indian gum, ivy and kermes. Finally, an artificial red color was minium, or red lead (Pb3O4).

Blue colors: An important blue used since classical antiquity is azurite. From lazurite (lapis lazuli) comes ultramarine blue, meaning beyond the seas, because it existed exclusively in Persia. Producing it required complex methods, and for that reason it was an expensive material and a means of luxury. Another group of blues consists of copper compounds with ammonia. Cobalt blue was widely used, as was lazouri. Lazouri was also the name given to the Indian pigment, a violet-blue plant color brought from India, which was later replaced by indigo, also a plant product with a deep blue color. Blue colors also came from violets and cornflowers. Purple colors: Purple, known since very ancient times as a royal dye, was the most beautiful and most expensive dye of antiquity. Purple was considered from the beginning a noble color and a symbol of gods and kings. The Assyrians already recorded two kinds of purple color, Argamannu, meaning red, and Takiltu, meaning violet, and they influenced the Persians. Later, Aristotle also recorded two color varieties, the Phoenician, meaning red, and the alourgic, meaning violet. Aeschylus mentions that it was the most expensive dye of antiquity. Purple colors play between blue and red and come from the word porphyra, the collective name for a group of shellfish families. Their production was very laborious, required a large number of shells and other mollusks, and was gathered in tiny quantities. Green colors: Green colors were produced from the ripe berries of the rhamnus plant and from iris flowers. The most common, known as Greek green (verdigris), is a copper acetate usually prepared by treating some form of copper with acid. Another green color is malachite, a green mineral already used in predynastic Egypt until 1800, when it was replaced by synthetic green pigments. Green earths were also used, called terrae vertae. Some colors were expensive, for example minerals that came from far away. Other colors were hard to find, while artificial colors required difficult and time-consuming preparation. These factors, together with the painter’s personal preferences and the technique he followed, influenced his choice.
Bibliography
· The Techniques and Materials of Medieval Painting. Daniel V. Thompson. Armos Publications.
· The Book of Art, or Treatise on Painting by Gennino Gennini, trans. P. Tetsis, Athens 1990.
· ARISTOTLE, On Colors and History of Animals, Kaktos, Athens, 1994.
· PLINY THE ELDER. ON ANCIENT GREEK PAINTING. AGRA EDITIONS.
· Eleni Ioakeimoglou. Organic Materials in Art and Archaeology. Volume I. Trochalia.