Episode
The first modern synthetic pigment
- Podcast
- Stories in Colour
- Published
- May 28, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 2668
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/podcast
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Summary
Meet an enigmatic pigment discovered entirely by accident at the start of the 18th century. Its story involves a rogue inventor with an unlikely connection to Doctor Frankenstein, a characterful trio of Johanns, and a renowned Botticelli forgery. This pigment came to be known as Prussian blue or Berlin blue. Before its discovery, a range of blue pigments existed but each had a significant flaw: natural ultramarine was prohibitively expensive, smalt discoloured, azurite turned green and indigo faded. Join colour specialist Evie Hatch and National Gallery host Beks Leary for a conversation about the pigment most famously seen in the blue revolution of Japanese woodblock printing, which inspired the Impressionists, as well as in earlier Rococo painting. Evie Hatch is an art historian specialising in the history and characteristics of artist pigments. She is the writer and presenter of Jackson's Art Pigment Stories series. ----- Watch the full episode on YouTube: youtu.be/WK1GSvP6VYs You can email us with any questions via [email protected] Find out more about the podcast on our website: www.nationalgallery.org.uk/podcast ----- Paintings mentioned: Paolo Veronese’s Four Allegories of Love series, about 1575: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/search-the-collection?q=Four+Allegories+of+Love&tpf=&tpt=&acf=&act= Probably by Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, A Girl with a Kitten , 1743. The National Gallery, London https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/probably-by-jean-baptiste-perronneau-a-girl-with-a-kitten Katsushika Hokusai, Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei) ,…