Green Death

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

19th Century Wallpaper by William Morris

“As to the arsenic scare a greater folly is hardly possible to imagine:
the doctors were bitten as people bitten by witch fever.”

William Morris
The Collected Letters of William Morris, Vol. 2

As artists, we must stay aware of the materials we are using and take precautions when handling pigments that may have toxic ingredients. But we are fortunate to be living in a time when it is easy to obtain detailed information about our materials as well as a time when manufacturers are working to create less and less toxic formulas.

The discovery of a vivid green by Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1775 led to a fashion craze lasting for a century. Although Scheele knew that the pigment he developed was highly poisonous, he also realized that it was unlike any other green pigment available. It became so popular, that even after it became common knowledge that the paint was toxic…