From a young age, one of the first preferences people make is their favourite colour. Such a simple choice becomes a conversation starter, an ice breaker, and a part of one’s self-identity. This goes to show how pigments are an essential part of our daily lives, influencing our personal style and how we decorate our spaces.
Though colours are easily available to us now, it was not always that way. Which raises the question of how colours and pigments have become so accessible in modern life?
Early Uses of Colour
Natural Pigments
Over 40,000 years ago, the first recorded pigment was created on an Indonesian island. Using accessible items such as chalk, soil, animal fat, and coal. This combination was used as a foundation to create five specific colours, such as red, black, yellow, white, and brown. These colours were limited but played a significant role in storytelling, animal depiction, and rituals.
Advancements in Early Civilizations
As civilizations came into play, pigments began being manufactured. Using fruits, vegetables, and animal secretions to produce dyes. One of the first examples of manufactured pigments was Egyptian blue. Created by quartz sand, copper, lime, and high temperatures. This discovery was a stepping stone in the development of pigments, revealing how malleable colour can be.
Symbolism of Colour
During the medieval era, colours became a notable indicator of wealth. It came with strict rules deciding who could wear certain colours based on status. Certain colours that were harder to get hold of were exclusively reserved for nobles’ and royals’ use. Such as Tyrian purple.
The modernization of Colour
Scientific Work on Colour
The study of colours began to emerge more in the 17th century. One of the most significant was Isaac Newton’s. In the 1660’s his work on light and pigments became a massive stepping stone to the scientific study of colour. By discovering that white light could be split into seven different visible colours. These seven colours consist of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. He found that colour was not inherent in objects but a result of how light interacts with it. This work of his—called Opticks- led to many other major discoveries across a variety of fields to come.
Colours Today
Through the next centuries, the advancements in chemistry began revolutionizing colour production. Leading to a diverse range of new colours being made. This new abundance and versatile selection of colour started leaving huge impacts on fashion, trends, and pop culture as we know them.