As we all should really be on holiday, I’m taking a long weekend to look at the stories of three green pigments, starting today with the oldest and most elusive of them, the mineral malachite.

Because green is a secondary colour, it might seem better mixed from blue and yellow, as it has been in various recipes such as Prussian green. But the painter always prefers using single pigments for the purity of their chroma, and the fact that the more pigments that get mixed, the closer the colour comes to muddy grey.

Given the shortage of lightfast bright greens, it’s surprising how little-used malachite green is in European painting, despite its rich colour. For a while it rejoiced quietly under traditional names including chrysocolla, green verditer, and even green bice, but it only ever became popular in Japan and China.

As a natural mineral, malachite is not uncommon, and a reliable source of pure pigment, which is chemically basic carbonate of copper. Malachite green was known to the ancient Egyptians, who appear to have used it as eye-paint. Found abundantly in Japanese and Chinese paintings from the seventh century onwards, it wasn’t used much in Europe until the Renaissance. After that, it almost died out in Europe until the nineteenth century, when it enjoyed a brief revival.

Two versions of the painting by Watanabe Kazan 渡辺崋山 of Sato Issai 佐藤一斎（五十歳）像 show malachite green at its finest.

This version from 1824, now in the Freer in Washington, is known to use malachite green with a slightly blue shade and deep in colour.

This smaller and earlier version from 1821, now in Tokyo, is a lighter, more yellow shade. I’m not aware of its pigment having been analysed, but I’d be surprised if it was straight malachite green.

The biggest problem with its adoption in Europe was the popularity there of oil paint. The pigment worked well where it could be ground quite coarsely and used in water-based media like fresco and egg tempera, but the finer you grind it, the paler it becomes. Oil painters like smooth buttery paints with fine pigment particles, which sadly didn’t work for malachite green.

The rich, almost emerald green robes of Spinello Aretino’s Virgin Enthroned with Angels from about 1380 contain malachite green, here in tempera medium.

Among its earliest appearances in oil paint is this spectacular centre panel of the van Eyck brothers’ Ghent Altarpiece, famous in its own right as the Adoration of the Lamb (c 1425-1432).

Continuing use of egg tempera in the Southern Renaissance helped it survive. Piero della Francesca’s famous The Baptism of Christ (after 1437), made in egg tempera on poplar wood, relies on the pigment for its greens. Microscopic examination of the paint layer here shows coarse mineral particles typical of natural malachite.

In Francesco del Cossa’s Saint Vincent Ferrer from about 1473-75, it has been identified in the dark green grass at the foot of the painting. This too was made using egg tempera.

However, microscopy of this paint layer shows that these pigment particles don’t seem to have been fractured as if they have been ground, but are globular, as occurs when the malachite green has been made by a process of precipitation. Such artificial malachite green didn’t appear in European paintings until after about 1430, just in time for Francesco del Cossa.

Although he painted in oils, Tintoretto was an enthusiastic user of malachite green. To obtain the range of greens seen in the rich and varied colours of vegetation in his Saint George and the Dragon from about 1555, he used this pigment with copper resinate glazes, a technique found in other paintings of the period.

Tintoretto’s vast oil painting of The Last Judgment (1560-62) in the Chiesa della Madonna dell’Orto, Venice, has been found to contain malachite green, I suspect in the band of green depicting the Flood just below the centre. The detail below makes this a bit clearer.

When painting the frescoes formerly in the Villa Aldobrandini between 1616-18, Domenichino and his assistants relied heavily on malachite green. It has been formally identified in this section, showing Apollo pursuing Daphne, where it’s the mainstay colour remaining, and is suspected in most of the others.

Although only classed as moderately permanent, these and other examples of very old frescoes show how well malachite green has retained its colour after four centuries or more. But with the rise of oil painting in European art, it fell from favour.

One of those who participated in its revival in the nineteenth century was Pierre-Auguste Renoir, whose painting of Chrysanthemums from 1881-82 shows how it could still be used in oil paint. But by then there was a much wider choice of more modern green pigments; the revival was short-lived, and malachite green has hardly been used since.

Reference

Rutherford J Gettens and Elisabeth West Fitzhugh (1993) Artists’ Pigments, vol 2, edited by Ashok Roy, Archetype. ISBN 978 1 904982 75 3.