Dying for Art: The Dark Secret Behind Your Favorite Masterpieces

The Arts Society Newbury recently played host to a captivating lecture titled Achemy and Adventure: A History of Exotic Colours and Poisonous Pigments. The talk was a journey through time, uncovering the hidden world of art and revealing the often deadly price artists paid for the sake of creating breathtaking masterpieces.

In the days before modern colour synthesis and safer pigments, many exotic colours and shades available to artists came with a dark secret: they were deadly. Take Scheele’s Green, a vibrant, fluorescent colour introduced in the 18th century that quickly gained popularity for its unique brightness. Scheele’s Green was made by mixing copper oxide and arsenic, two highly toxic compounds that could cause all manner of health problems, from respiratory issues and dermatitis to neurological damage and death.

Or take the pigment known as Tyrian Purple, extracted from the secretions of a small mollusc native to the Mediterranean region. This purple pigment, valued for its deep, rich colour, was exceptionally rare and the source of significant wealth for the regions where it could be found. However, for every 10,000 of these molluscs captured and processed, enough pigment was extracted to dye just one set of clothes. Such scarcity drove many artists and patrons to seek other sources of their preferred colours.

Ultramarine Blue, another highly prized pigment made from the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli, proved no safer. To create a mere kilogram of pigment, artists required approximately 2.5 kilograms of the stone. When considering that the high cost and limited availability of the raw products meant only the most skilled or financially secure artists could access the colours, it becomes clear why certain art pieces of old rank amongst the best – or only – masterpieces available at that time.

The lecture also delved into the lives and works of the artists who worked with these pigments, people who sometimes literally bore the stains and scars of their craft until their untimely death. The discovery of more affordable, non-toxic pigments in the 19th and 20th centuries dramatically changed the course of art history and often involved heated debates between the advocates of innovation in art and the upholders of established tradition.