Red ocher is among the first colors appearing on the palette of early humans, along with white and red. Black, white and red are also the first colors a newborn can distinguish. Color has a strong spiritual reference as does the element Earth from which ocher is born.
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Ocher (Ochre) comes in many earth tones including red ocher, yellow ocher, gold ocher, purple and rarely green. The color shade differences come from the amount and ratio of iron oxides. The ochre above has an orange hue to presence of limonite (yellow ocher).
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Hematite, a magnetic silvery stone often sold as jewelry, is an iron oxide and grinds down to red powder. This is the red of ocher. Hematite can also appear in the raw as an earthy red rock. Various ochres can be gathered in natural form in stones, clay and red or yellow earth.
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The three iron oxides of ocher are limonite (yellow); hematite (red); and magnetite (black). Depending on the ratio of components, ocher can cover a wide range of earth tones. Ocher is a favorite for painting nature scenes and flesh tones.
Red ocher is one of the colors beloved by Medieval and Renaissance painters. They use red ocher for fresco, a technique developed by the Minoan Greeks; in egg tempera artwork and later oil painting.
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The palette of Vermeer includes red ocher. Michelangelo did his studies for the Sistine Chapel in red ocher, and it's a frequent medium in his drawings and sketches. Leonardo da Vinci and others are also fond of the ocher tones in art.
In Ancient Egypt, red ochre is a symbol of life and victory. The color is also used as lip rouge or blush. Classical Greeks call red ochre Pontus Euxinus (Black Sea) for the part of Turkey it comes from. Greeks in the 6th century BCE believe the Black Sea is the edge of the world.
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In history, use of ocher goes farther back than many scientists initially thought. In Africa, evidence of use and processing of red ochre pigments is dated to c. 300,000 years ago. The practice reaches its zenith with the emergence of Homo sapiens c. 2-300,000 ya.
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Evidence of ochre's use in Australia is more recent, dated to 50,000 years ago. New research has uncovered evidence in Asia going back to 40,000 ya. Scientists have recently red ochre has to protect skin from sun damage of ultraviolet rays.
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Red ochre is used as a color in Africa for over 200,000 years. Women of the Himba in Namibia decorate their bodies with a mix of ochre and animal fat. The ochre mixture is also applied to hair after braiding. Maasai people in Kenya and Tanzania use it the same way.
Pieces of ochre engraved with abstract designs, c. 75,000 years old, are found at Blombos Cave in South Africa. In Wales, the paleolithic burial known as the Red Lady of Paviland, due to her coating of red ochre, dates to 33,000 ya.
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Animal paintings of red and yellow ochre pigments appear in paleolithic sites such as Pech Merle in France (c. 25,000 years old), and the Altamira Cave in Spain (c. 16,500–15,000 BCE). Indigenous Australians have been using ochers for over 40,000 years.
The Lascaux cave features horse paintings 17,300 years old. Neolithic burials use red ochre pigment symbolically, either to represent a return to the earth or possibly as a form of ritual rebirth. The color can represent blood and a theoretical Great Mother or Earth Goddess.
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"The use of ochre is particularly intensive: it is not unusual to find a layer of the cave floor impregnated with a purplish red to a depth of eight inches. The size of these ochre deposits raises a problem not yet solved. The coloring is so intense that practically all the loose ground seems to consist of ochre.
One can imagine that the Aurignacians regularly painted their bodies red, dyed their animal skins, coated their weapons, and sprinkled the ground of their dwellings, and that a paste of ochre was used for decorative purposes in every phase of their domestic life. We must assume no less, if we are to account for the veritable mines of ochre on which some of them lived..."
from Leroi-Gourhan, A. 1968. The Art of Prehistoric Man in Western Europe.
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According to Gothic historian Jordanes, ancient Picts paint themselves "Iron Red". Frequent references in Irish myth to "red men" (Gaelic: Fer Dearg) suggest such a practice is common to the Celts of the British Isles.
The red pigment comes from ground bog iron, a brown form of ochre particularly abundant in the Irish midlands. Bog iron is also called brown ocher or brown hematite. It's magnetic as are all the iron ores.
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Mainly used as pigment, red ocher is versatile. According to historian Peter Watson, "tribal peoples alive today ... use it to treat animal skins or as an insect repellent, to staunch bleeding, or as protection from the sun. Ochre may have been the first medicament."
It's mentioned in the Ebers Papyrus, a collection of ancient Egyptian medical knowledge, for use in a medicinal salve for eye and intestinal ailments. Yellow ocher is used to treat urological problems.
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While ocher is the true earth pigment, other red pigments are also popular. Neolithic humans use red dye from crushed cochineal insects or kermes insects. Red also comes from madder root, famed as an artists' pigment during the Renaissance.
Red pigment can also be made by toasting lead white pigment, which causes a chemical reaction. The red is used as minium for miniatures in illuminated manuscripts. However, like all lead it's toxic. Not surprisingly, it's a favorite of many alchemists.
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The ocher pigments in nature are non-toxic unless in combination with other formations such as the bright blue chalcanthite. The ancient Romans paint their faces red with ocher at celebrations. Ocher colors are prominent in wall art and frescos of Pompeii.
Ochre is the main pigment used by Māori for war canoes and carvings in communal houses. Ochre prevents wood from drying out. It's also rubbed on the face to repel insects. Solid ocher chunks are ground on a flat but rough surfaced rock to produce the powder.
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The 15th-century painter Cennino Cennini described the uses of ochre pigments in his famous treatise on painting.
"This pigment is found in the earth of mountains, where particular seams like sulfur are found. And there, where these seams are, sinopia, green earth and other types of pigment are found...
And the abovementioned pigments running through this landscape looked as a scar on the face of a man or of a woman looks...I went in behind with my little knife, prospecting at the scar of this pigment; and in this way, I promise you, I never sampled a more lovely and perfect ochre pigment...
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And know that this ochre is a common pigment, particularly when working in fresco; that with other mixtures that, as i will explain to you, it is used for flesh colors, for drapery, for colored mountains and buildings and hair and in general for many things."
In early modern Malta, south of Sicily, red ochre paint is commonly used on public buildings. Naturally made ocher powder can be washed and cleaned of impurities before use. In paint, other names for red ochre tones include Venetian red, mars red, English red and Indian red.
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