Pigments Quotes

“Newcomers to manuscripts sometimes ask what such books tell us about the societies that created them. At one level, these Gospel Books describe nothing, for they are not local chronicles but standard Latin translations of religious texts from far away. At the same time, this is itself extraordinarily revealing about Ireland. No one knows how literacy and Christianity had first reached the islands of Ireland, possibly through North Africa. This was clearly no primitive backwater but a civilization which could now read Latin, although never occupied by the Romans, and which was somehow familiar with the texts and artistic designs which have unambiguous parallels in the Coptic and Greek churches, such as carpet pages and Canon tables. Although the Book of Kells itself is as uniquely Irish as anything imaginable, it is a Mediterranean text and the pigments used in making it include orpiment, a yellow made from arsenic sulphide, exported from Italy, where it is found in volcanoes. There are clearly lines of trade and communication unknown to us.”
― Christopher de Hamel, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts

“When they burst through, a small chain of colorful mountains appeared below them. The range spanned from the deepest, darkest blue to the shiniest, brightest white and everything in between. The foot of each mountain was a single color– midnight blue, mossy green, burnt umber – and this color, whatever it was, was the darkest shade it could be. As the color moved up the mountains, the shade grew lighter and lighter until it reached the peak. The peaks were glorious pastels, shimmering with only the faintest pigment.”
― Paige Britt, The Lost Track of Time