Variable Violet

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Portrait of Violette Hemann 1910 Odilon Redon

We artists live in an unprecedented time as far as art materials are concerned. Advances in chemistry and modern manufacturing processes driven by marketing, have produced a surfeit of choices in paints and every other category of art supplies. Many of these paints are true advances in permanence and safety. Many are not. Some artists are under the impression that the art materials business is somehow regulated by our government in such a way that there are strict standards for colors, for example. Except for toxicity, there are no laws which would prevent an unscrupulous manufacturer from offering an inferior pigment or even a completely different pigment as a well-known common color, say Cerulean Blue. For some companies, intense competition has put slick marketing ahead of the actual value of their products. False labeling is a big problem for artists. Common colors vary from one producer to the next, as does the…