A lot of these color names...ultramarine blue, ochre, sienna, burnt sienna,
umber, burnt umber, cadmium red, cadmium yellow, alizarin crimson.... I
learned when I was painting in oils. They also come up in watercolors and
gauche.
Obviously the names are derived from what was ground up to make pigments way
back when painting was a guild profession, and supposedly the hues were the
same from batch to batch of pigment. Sorta like a color-match system. So if a
fresco painter in Milan writes to his fellow painter in Florence and talks
about using "burnt umber", everyone knows exactly what color he means.
I had a scene painting teacher from Germany once who told us the only colors
you needed to paint any scene were: lead white, alizarin crimson,
ultramarine blue, and ochre. Period. He made us paint a pastoral setting with
only
these colors. It actually works, but you definitely get an "old world" muted
look.
Nowadays there are so many colors made so many different ways it can be mind
boggling.
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