The Alchemy of Paint is a critique of the modern world, which Spike
Bucklow sees as the product of seventeenth-century ideas about science.
In modern times, we have divorced color from its origins, using it for
commercial advantage. Spike Bucklow shows us how in medieval times,
color had mystical significance far beyond the enjoyment of shade and
hue.
Each chapter demonstrates the mindset of medieval Europe and is devoted
to just one color, acknowledging its connections with life in the
pre-modern world. Colors examined and explained in detail include a
midnight blue called ultramarine, an opaque red called vermilion, a
multitude of colors made from metals, a transparent red called
dragonsblood, and, finally, gold.
Today, "scarlet" describes a color, but it was originally a type of
cloth. Henry VI's wardrobe accounts from 1438 to 1489 show that his
cheapest scarlet was £14.2s.6d. and that scarlets could fetch up to
twice that price. In the fifteenth century, a mid-priced scarlet cost
more than two thousand kilos of cheese or one thousand liters of wine.
This expense accounts for the custom of giving important visitors the
red carpet treatment.
The book looks at how color was "read" in the Middle Ages and returns to
materials to look at the hidden meaning of the artists' version of the
philosopher's stone. The penultimate chapter considers why everyone has
always loved gold.
Spike Bucklow is a conservation scientist working with oil paintings
at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge.
