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Sylvia Rose

Black Pigments of Ancient Artisans

Updated: Oct 8

Black is among the first pigments in the palette of early humans. By Paleolithic times, black defines lines, shadows and meaning. Black pigment materials include charcoal, burnt bone fragments and inks and dyes like oak galls.



black shades with hex code
Standard Shades of Black Hex Codes

Black comes from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It's impossible to get a true pure black in nature. Most blacks have warm or cool tones. The hex codes above are 'official' versions of virtual black.


Artists often disagree with these interpretations. For instance ebony black in hex (above) is medium greenish grey, and charcoal black shows an odd medium grey-blue. Nature also presents variations; and, no two people see a color exactly the same way.



Black Powder

In Paleolithic times and earlier, artisans experiment with grinding, charring, carving and sculpting various materials. White, black and red are the earliest paint pigments used, abundant in nature.


Throughout history artisans seek the finest, richest, deepest tones in pigments, dyes and sculpting material. An early source of black is soot from oil lamps. It creates a warm dense black and is found in art supply stores as Lamp Black.



a flame inside jar makes soot
Soot forms on the neck of the glass vessel

Many natural blacks, not surprisingly, come from charring. People easily make black pigment by heating and charring wood and other plant products. The equivalent in artist's paint stores is Carbon Black or Charcoal Black.


Carbon black today is created from natural gas in an environment of controlled oxygen and temperature. In this way, fine particles of consistent quality are produced. This carbon black can also be used in ink.



smudges of black

The largest producers of wood charcoal today are Indonesia, China, Poland, Vietnam and Laos. Besides making artists' products charcoal's popular for cooking and barbecue, and its odor-absorption and filtering properties.


Charcoal has been made the same way for thousands of years, using a pyrolysis technique, or heating organic material in the absence of oxygen. Charcoal makers heat the wood at over 400° C (750° F) in a closed environment.



making charcoal with intense heat
To make charcoal the heat is intense

The process is exothermic. It releases heat, causing temperature of the immediate surroundings to rise. This intensifies the level of heat. In a situation of no oxygen fires tend to go out, thus charcoal making is an art form in some regions.


For centuries charcoal is created in pits, hill dugouts or kiln-like constructions as people experiment with darker denser charcoals. For cooking, hard fragrant woods like oak, hickory and fruit tree wood are best.



a tribal guy with black and white makeup
Black and White

Charcoal can easily be applied with the fingers as wall decor, body and face paint. Above, the white is kaolin clay or a limestone derivative. Kaolin is used in both art and medicine. The spiritual meaning of black in ancient times is usually positive.


Different woods or processes yield various types and densities of charcoal, from crumbly soft to an almost conte-like hardness. It can be smudged or used to draw with precision. Willow is commonly used to make artists' charcoal.



charcoal in stick form
Finished charcoal sticks

Charred grape vines and stems yield Vine Black. Fundamentally black is not black as nature blacks vary in tone, incorporating cool (blue) or warm (yellow, red) hues. Blue, yellow and red are the primary colors of the color wheel. With black and white they form all colors.


A mixture of black and yellow creates greens found in nature. The hex triplets black and yellow mixed at 50/50 make a natural olive green. Different amounts or shades of yellow added to pure black yield lighter and darker greens.



black and yellow make green


The giant deer or Megaloceros giganteus exists from 400,000 years ago to c. 4800 BCE. Bones and antlers of this animal can be charred to make black paint. Spiritually the deer products hold power and essence of the animal both as object of veneration and prey.


For magic and ritual as in shamanism, using parts of the desired animal as means of expression (art, dance) can attract these animals into one's sphere of being. In animal spirituality the stag represents beginnings, leadership, virility and nature magic.




Megaloceros with line of dots. Lascaux Caves, France
Megaloceros with line of dots. Lascaux Caves, France (a copy due to damage) - originals date c. 17,000 ya

Galls or gall nuts are round or bulbous growths on plants and trees, usually the gall oak. These form because an insect, usually a type of wasp, lays its eggs on the tree. The tree forms a tannin-rich coating around the egg to protect itself. It gets hard, and also protects the larva.


The gall wasp goes through four larval stages, all inside the gall until the final, adult phase. The wasp gnaws its way out, leaving a small round hole in the gall. If there's no hole, the larva is still inside. Picking those with holes make galls a renewable resource.



galls some with holes
Large Oak Galls

The galls are crushed and cooked with iron filings and water. This will create an ink from dark brown to rich black. To blacken it deeper, add more iron filings. Ferrous sulfate also works.


It can also be used as a dye for fabric or yarn, and because it's high in tannins it's not necessary to use a mordant. It makes a good mordant for cotton and linen fabrics.


Ivory is also used in art and imported from Africa c. 1500 BCE. A favorite of sculptors and artisans because of its soft gleam, it's better known as a black pigment than a white one. Ivory black comes from ivory elephant tusks charred in a closed room.



cross section of ivory mammoth tusk
Cross-section, ivory tusk of mammoth from Siberia (credit: Hannes Grobe)

The ivory fractures into splinters, which are then finely ground into a chalky black pigment. The pigments are synthetically made today. Besides extinct mammoths, ivory comes from the elephant, walrus, narwhal, sperm whale, hippopotamus and warthog.



Non-Fiction Books:


Fiction Books:

READ: Lora Ley Adventures - Germanic Mythology Fiction Series

READ: Reiker For Hire - Victorian Detective Murder Mysteries










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