A pigment is a colored material that is completely or nearly

insoluble In chemistry, solubility is the ability of a substance, the solute, to form a solution with another substance, the solvent. Insolubility is the opposite property, the inability of the solute to form such a solution. The extent of the solubil ...

in water. In contrast, dyes are typically soluble, at least at some stage in their use. Generally dyes are often

organic compound In chemistry, organic compounds are generally any chemical compounds that contain carbon-hydrogen or carbon-carbon bonds. Due to carbon's ability to catenate (form chains with other carbon atoms), millions of organic compounds are known. T ...

s whereas pigments are often inorganic compounds. Pigments of prehistoric and historic value include ochre, charcoal, and lapis lazuli.

Economic impact

In 2006, around 7.4 million tons of

inorganic In chemistry, an inorganic compound is typically a chemical compound that lacks carbon–hydrogen bonds, that is, a compound that is not an organic compound. The study of inorganic compounds is a subfield of chemistry known as ''inorganic chemist ...

, organic, and special pigments were marketed worldwide. Estimated at around US$14.86 billion in 2018 and will rise at over 4.9% CAGR from 2019 to 2026. The global demand for pigments was roughly US$20.5 billion in 2009. According to an April 2018 report by ''

Bloomberg Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'', the estimated value of the pigment industry globally is $30 billion. The value of

titanium dioxide Titanium dioxide, also known as titanium(IV) oxide or titania , is the inorganic compound with the chemical formula . When used as a pigment, it is called titanium white, Pigment White 6 (PW6), or CI 77891. It is a white solid that is insolub ...

– used to enhance the white brightness of many products – was placed at $13.2 billion per year, while the color Ferrari red is valued at $300 million each year.

Physical principles

Like all materials, the color of pigments arises because they absorb only certain wavelengths of

visible light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 te ...

. The bonding properties of the material determine the wavelength and efficiency of light absorption. Light of other wavelengths are reflected or scattered. The reflected light spectrum defines the

color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are assoc ...

that we observe. The appearance of pigments is sensitive to the source light. Sunlight has a high

color temperature Color temperature is the color of light emitted by an idealized opaque, non-reflective body at a particular temperature measured in kelvins. The color temperature scale is used to categorize the color of light emitted by other light sources ...

and a fairly uniform spectrum. Sunlight is considered a standard for white light. Artificial light sources are less uniform. Color spaces used to represent colors numerically must specify their light source. Lab color measurements, unless otherwise noted, assume that the measurement was recorded under a D65 light source, or "Daylight 6500 K", which is roughly the

of sunlight. Complex reflectance

Other properties of a color, such as its saturation or lightness, may be determined by the other substances that accompany pigments. Binders and fillers can affect the color.

History

Minerals have been used as colorants since prehistoric times. Early humans used paint for aesthetic purposes such as body decoration. Pigments and paint grinding equipment believed to be between 350,000 and 400,000 years old have been reported in a

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

at Twin Rivers, near Lusaka,

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...

. Ochre, iron oxide, was the first color of paint. A favored blue pigment was derived from lapis lazuli. Pigments based on minerals and clays often bear the name of the city or region where they were originally mined. Raw Sienna and

Burnt Sienna Sienna (from it, terra di Siena, meaning "Siena earth") is an earth pigment containing iron oxide and manganese oxide. In its natural state, it is yellowish brown and is called raw sienna. When heated, it becomes a reddish brown and is calle ...

came from

Siena Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena. The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centur ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, while Raw Umber and Burnt Umber came from

Umbria it, Umbro (man) it, Umbra (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , ...

. These pigments were among the easiest to synthesize, and chemists created modern colors based on the originals. These were more consistent than colors mined from the original ore bodies, but the place names remained. Also found in many Paleolithic and

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

cave paintings are Red Ochre, anhydrous Fe₂O₃, and the hydrated Yellow Ochre (Fe₂O₃^.H₂O). Charcoal—or carbon black—has also been used as a black pigment since prehistoric times. The first known synthetic pigment was

Egyptian blue Egyptian blue, also known as calcium copper silicate (CaCuSi4O10 or CaOCuO(SiO2)4 (calcium copper tetrasilicate)) or cuprorivaite, is a pigment that was used in ancient Egypt for thousands of years. It is considered to be the first synthetic pi ...

, which is first attested on an alabaster bowl in Egypt dated to

Naqada III Naqada III is the last phase of the Naqada culture of ancient Egyptian prehistory, dating from approximately 3200 to 3000 BC. It is the period during which the process of state formation, which began in Naqada II, became highly visible, w ...

(''circa'' 3250 BC). Egyptian blue (blue frit), calcium copper silicate CaCuSi₄O₁₀, made by heating a mixture of

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...

sand,

lime Lime commonly refers to: * Lime (fruit), a green citrus fruit * Lime (material), inorganic materials containing calcium, usually calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide * Lime (color), a color between yellow and green Lime may also refer to: Botany ...

, a flux and a

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

source, such as

malachite Malachite is a copper carbonate hydroxide mineral, with the formula Cu2CO3(OH)2. This opaque, green-banded mineral crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, and most often forms botryoidal, fibrous, or stalagmitic masses, in fracture ...

. Already invented in the Predynastic Period of Egypt, its use became widespread by the

4th Dynasty The Fourth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty IV) is characterized as a "golden age" of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Dynasty IV lasted from to 2494 BC. It was a time of peace and prosperity as well as one during which trade with other ...

. It was the blue pigment par excellence of Roman antiquity; its art technological traces vanished in the course of the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

until its rediscovery in the context of the

Egyptian campaign The French campaign in Egypt and Syria (1798–1801) was Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in the Ottoman territories of Egypt and Syria, proclaimed to defend French trade interests, to establish scientific enterprise in the region. It was the pr ...

and the excavations in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Later premodern synthetic pigments include

white lead White lead is the basic lead carbonate 2PbCO3·Pb(OH)2. It is a complex salt, containing both carbonate and hydroxide ions. White lead occurs naturally as a mineral, in which context it is known as hydrocerussite, a hydrate of cerussite. It was ...

(basic lead carbonate, (PbCO₃)₂Pb(OH)₂),

vermilion Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color, color family, and pigment most often made, since antiquity until the 19th century, from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide, which is toxic) and its corresponding color. It i ...

verdigris Verdigris is the common name for blue-green, copper-based pigments that form a patina on copper, bronze, and brass. The technical literature is ambiguous as to its chemical composition. Some sources refer to "neutral verdigris" as copper(II) ...

, and

lead-tin-yellow Lead-tin-yellow is a yellow pigment, of historical importance in oil painting, sometimes called the "Yellow of the Old Masters" because of the frequency with which it was used by those famous painters. Nomenclature The name lead-tin yellow ...

. Vermilion, a mercury sulfide, was originally made by grinding a powder of natural

cinnabar Cinnabar (), or cinnabarite (), from the grc, κιννάβαρι (), is the bright scarlet to brick-red form of mercury(II) sulfide (HgS). It is the most common source ore for refining elemental mercury and is the historic source for the bri ...

. From the 17th century on, it was also synthesized from the elements. It was favored by old masters such as

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, nea ...

. Indian yellow was once produced by collecting the urine of cattle that had been fed only mango leaves. Dutch and Flemish painters of the 17th and 18th centuries favored it for its

luminescent Luminescence is spontaneous emission of light by a substance not resulting from heat; or "cold light". It is thus a form of cold-body radiation. It can be caused by chemical reactions, electrical energy, subatomic motions or stress on a crystal ...

qualities, and often used it to represent sunlight. Since mango leaves are nutritionally inadequate for cattle, the practice of harvesting Indian yellow was eventually declared to be inhumane. Modern hues of Indian yellow are made from synthetic pigments. Vermillion has been partially replaced in by cadmium reds. Because of the cost of lapis lazuli, substitutes were often used.

Prussian blue Prussian blue (also known as Berlin blue, Brandenburg blue or, in painting, Parisian or Paris blue) is a dark blue pigment produced by oxidation of ferrous ferrocyanide salts. It has the chemical formula Fe CN)">Cyanide.html" ;"title="e(Cyani ...

, the oldest modern synthetic pigment, was discovered by accident in 1704. By the early 19th century, synthetic and metallic blue pigments included French ultramarine, a synthetic form of lapis lazuli. Ultramarine was manufactured by treating aluminium silicate with sulfur. Various forms of

Cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, p ...

and Cerulean blue were also introduced. In the early 20th century, Phthalo Blue, a synthetic metallo-organic pigment was prepared. At the same time,

Royal Blue Royal blue is a deep and vivid shade of blue. It is said to have been created by clothiers in Rode, Somerset, a consortium of whom won a competition to make a dress for Queen Charlotte, consort of King George III. Brightness The ''Oxford E ...

, another name once given to tints produced from lapis lazuli, has evolved to signify a much lighter and brighter color, and is usually mixed from Phthalo Blue and

, or from inexpensive synthetic blue dyes. The discovery in 1856 of

mauveine Mauveine, also known as aniline purple and Perkin's mauve, was one of the first synthetic dyes. It was discovered serendipitously by William Henry Perkin in 1856 while he was attempting to synthesise the phytochemical quinine for the treatment of ...

, the first

aniline dye Aniline is an organic compound with the formula C6 H5 NH2. Consisting of a phenyl group attached to an amino group, aniline is the simplest aromatic amine. It is an industrially significant commodity chemical, as well as a versatile starting m ...

, was a forerunner for the development of hundreds of

synthetic dye A dye is a colored substance that chemically bonds to the substrate to which it is being applied. This distinguishes dyes from pigments which do not chemically bind to the material they color. Dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution and ...

s and pigments like azo and diazo compounds. These dyes ushered in the flourishing of organic chemistry, including systematic designs of colorants. The development of organic chemistry diminished the dependence on inorganic pigments. File:Johannes Vermeer - Het melkmeisje - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Milkmaid'' by

Johannes Vermeer Johannes Vermeer ( , , see below; also known as Jan Vermeer; October 1632 – 15 December 1675) was a Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life. During his lifetime, he was a moderately succe ...

(c. 1658). Vermeer was lavish in his choice of expensive pigments, including

, natural

ultramarine Ultramarine is a deep blue color pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. The name comes from the Latin ''ultramarinus'', literally 'beyond the sea', because the pigment was imported into Europe from mines in Afg ...

, and

madder lake Alizarin (also known as 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone, Mordant Red 11, C.I. 58000, and Turkey Red) is an organic compound with formula that has been used throughout history as a prominent red dye, principally for dyeing textile fabrics. Historic ...

, as shown in the vibrant painting. File:Tizian 041.jpg,

used the historic pigment

Vermilion Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color, color family, and pigment most often made, since antiquity until the 19th century, from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide, which is toxic) and its corresponding color. It i ...

to create the reds in the oil painting of

Assunta The Assumption of Mary is one of the four Catholic_Mariology#Dogmatic_teachings, Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius XII defined it in 1950 in his apostolic constitution ''Munificentissimus Deus'' as follows: We proclaim and d ...

, completed c. 1518. File:Accademia - Miracle of the Slave by Tintoretto.jpg, ''Miracle of the Slave'' by

Tintoretto Tintoretto ( , , ; born Jacopo Robusti; late September or early October 1518Bernari and de Vecchi 1970, p. 83.31 May 1594) was an Italian painter identified with the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticized the speed wit ...

(c. 1548). The son of a master dyer, Tintoretto used Carmine Red Lake pigment, derived from the

cochineal The cochineal ( , ; ''Dactylopius coccus'') is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the natural dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessile parasite native to tropical and subtropical South America through North Americ ...

insect, to achieve dramatic color effects. File:Paul Cézanne 160.jpg, ''Self Portrait'' by

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...

. Working in the late 19th century, Cézanne had a much broader palette of colors than his predecessors.

Manufacturing and industrial standards

Before the development of synthetic pigments, and the refinement of techniques for extracting mineral pigments, batches of color were often inconsistent. With the development of a modern color industry, manufacturers and professionals have cooperated to create international standards for identifying, producing, measuring, and testing colors. First published in 1905, the

Munsell color system In colorimetry, the Munsell color system is a color space that specifies colors based on three properties of color: hue (basic color), chroma (color intensity), and value (lightness). It was created by Professor Albert H. Munsell in the firs ...

became the foundation for a series of color models, providing objective methods for the measurement of color. The Munsell system describes a color in three dimensions,

hue In color theory, hue is one of the main properties (called color appearance parameters) of a color, defined technically in the CIECAM02 model as "the degree to which a stimulus can be described as similar to or different from stimuli that ...

value Value or values may refer to: Ethics and social * Value (ethics) wherein said concept may be construed as treating actions themselves as abstract objects, associating value to them ** Values (Western philosophy) expands the notion of value beyo ...

(lightness), and chroma (color purity), where chroma is the difference from gray at a given hue and value. By the middle 20th century, standardized methods for pigment chemistry were available, part of an international movement to create such standards in industry. The

International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Art ...

(ISO) develops technical standards for the manufacture of pigments and dyes. ISO standards define various industrial and chemical properties, and how to test for them. The principal ISO standards that relate to all pigments are as follows: * ISO-787 General methods of test for pigments and extenders. * ISO-8780 Methods of dispersion for assessment of dispersion characteristics. Other ISO standards pertain to particular classes or categories of pigments, based on their chemical composition, such as

pigments,

, iron oxide pigments, and so forth. Many manufacturers of paints, inks, textiles, plastics, and colors have voluntarily adopted the

Colour Index International Colour Index International is a reference database jointly maintained by the Society of Dyers and Colourists and the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists. It currently contains over 27,000 individual products listed under 13, ...

(CII) as a standard for identifying the pigments that they use in manufacturing particular colors. First published in 1925—and now published jointly on the web by the

Society of Dyers and Colourists The Society of Dyers and Colourists (SDC) is an international professional society, with headquarters in Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK, specializing in colour in all its manifestations. Founded in 1884, it was granted a Royal Charter of Incorporati ...

(

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

) and the

American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists AATCC—the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists— is a 501(c)(6) not-for-profit professional association that provides test method development, quality control materials, educational development, and networking for textile and a ...

(USA)—this index is recognized internationally as the authoritative reference on colorants. It encompasses more than 27,000 products under more than 13,000 generic color index names. In the CII schema, each pigment has a generic index number that identifies it chemically, regardless of proprietary and historic names. For example,

Phthalocyanine Blue BN Copper phthalocyanine (CuPc), also called phthalocyanine blue, phthalo blue and many other names, is a bright, crystalline, synthetic blue pigment from the group of phthalocyanine dyes. Its brilliant blue is frequently used in paints and dy ...

has been known by a variety of generic and proprietary names since its discovery in the 1930s. In much of Europe, phthalocyanine blue is better known as Helio Blue, or by a proprietary name such as Winsor Blue. An American paint manufacturer, Grumbacher, registered an alternate spelling (Thanos Blue) as a trademark.

resolves all these conflicting historic, generic, and proprietary names so that manufacturers and consumers can identify the pigment (or dye) used in a particular color product. In the CII, all phthalocyanine blue pigments are designated by a generic color index number as either PB15 or PB16, short for pigment blue 15 and pigment blue 16; these two numbers reflect slight variations in molecular structure, which produce a slightly more greenish or reddish blue.

Figures of merit

The following are some of the attributes of pigments that determine their suitability for particular manufacturing processes and applications: * Lightfastness and sensitivity for damage from ultraviolet light *

Heat stability In materials science and molecular biology, thermostability is the ability of a substance to resist irreversible change in its chemical or physical structure, often by resisting decomposition or polymerization, at a high relative temperature. ...

Toxicity Toxicity is the degree to which a chemical substance or a particular mixture of substances can damage an organism. Toxicity can refer to the effect on a whole organism, such as an animal, bacterium, or plant, as well as the effect on a subs ...

* Tinting strength * Staining *

Dispersion Dispersion may refer to: Economics and finance * Dispersion (finance), a measure for the statistical distribution of portfolio returns * Price dispersion, a variation in prices across sellers of the same item *Wage dispersion, the amount of variat ...

(which can be measured with a Hegman gauge) * Opacity or transparency * Resistance to alkalis and acids * Reactions and interactions between pigments

Swatches

Swatches are used to communicate colors accurately. The types of swatches are dictated by the media, i.e., printing, computers, plastics, and textiles. Generally, the medium that offers the broadest gamut of color shades is widely used across diverse media.

Printed swatches

Reference standards are provided by printed swatches of color shades.

PANTONE Pantone LLC (stylized as PANTONE) is a limited liability company headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey. The company is best known for its Pantone Matching System (PMS), a proprietary color space used in a variety of industries, notably graphi ...

, RAL,

Munsell Munsell may refer to: * Albert Henry Munsell (1858–1918), American painter, teacher of art, and the inventor of the Munsell color system * Harvey M. Munsell, American soldier in the Civil War. *Munsell Color Company *Munsell color system In c ...

, etc. are widely used standards of color communication across diverse media like printing, plastics, and textiles.

Plastic swatches

Companies manufacturing color masterbatches and pigments for plastics offer plastic swatches in injection molded color chips. These color chips are supplied to the designer or customer to choose and select the color for their specific plastic products. Plastic swatches are available in various special effects like pearl, metallic, fluorescent, sparkle, mosaic etc. However, these effects are difficult to replicate on other media like print and computer display. Plastic swatches have been created by 3D modelling to including various special effects.

Computer swatches

The appearance of pigments in natural light is difficult to replicate on a

computer display A computer monitor is an output device that displays information in pictorial or textual form. A discrete monitor comprises a visual display, support electronics, power supply, housing, electrical connectors, and external user controls. The ...

. Approximations are required. The Munsell Color System provides an objective measure of color in three dimensions: hue, value (or lightness), and chroma. Computer displays in general fail to show the true chroma of many pigments, but the hue and lightness can be reproduced with relative accuracy. However, when the gamma of a computer display deviates from the reference value, the hue is also systematically biased. The following approximations assume a display device at gamma 2.2, using the

sRGB color space sRGB is a standard RGB color space, RGB (red, green, blue) color space that Hewlett-Packard, HP and Microsoft created cooperatively in 1996 to use on monitors, printers, and the World Wide Web. It was subsequently standardized by the Internation ...

. The further a display device deviates from these standards, the less accurate these swatches will be. Swatches are based on the average measurements of several lots of single-pigment watercolor paints, converted from Lab color space to

for viewing on a computer display. The appearance of a pigment may depend on the brand and even the batch. Furthermore, pigments have inherently complex

reflectance The reflectance of the surface of a material is its effectiveness in reflecting radiant energy. It is the fraction of incident electromagnetic power that is reflected at the boundary. Reflectance is a component of the response of the electronic ...

spectra that will render their color appearance greatly different depending on the spectrum of the source illumination, a property called metamerism. Averaged measurements of pigment samples will only yield approximations of their true appearance under a specific source of illumination. Computer display systems use a technique called chromatic adaptation transforms to emulate the

correlated color temperature Color temperature is the color of light emitted by an idealized opaque, non-reflective body at a particular temperature measured in kelvins. The color temperature scale is used to categorize the color of light emitted by other light sources ...

of illumination sources, and cannot perfectly reproduce the intricate spectral combinations originally seen. In many cases, the perceived color of a pigment falls outside of the

gamut In color reproduction, including computer graphics and photography, the gamut, or color gamut , is a certain ''complete subset'' of colors. The most common usage refers to the subset of colors which can be accurately represented in a given circ ...

of computer displays and a method called

gamut mapping In digital imaging systems, color management (or colour management) is the controlled conversion between the color representations of various devices, such as image scanners, digital cameras, monitors, TV screens, film printers, computer printe ...

is used to approximate the true appearance. Gamut mapping trades off any one of lightness,

, or

saturation Saturation, saturated, unsaturation or unsaturated may refer to: Chemistry * Saturation, a property of organic compounds referring to carbon-carbon bonds **Saturated and unsaturated compounds ** Degree of unsaturation **Saturated fat or fatty aci ...

accuracy to render the color on screen, depending on the priority chosen in the conversion's ICC rendering intent.

Biological pigments

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

, a pigment is any

ed material of plant or animal cells. Many biological structures, such as

skin Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation. Other animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have different de ...

, eyes,

fur Fur is a thick growth of hair that covers the skin of mammals. It consists of a combination of oily guard hair on top and thick underfur beneath. The guard hair keeps moisture from reaching the skin; the underfur acts as an insulating blanket t ...

, and hair contain pigments (such as

melanin Melanin (; from el, μέλας, melas, black, dark) is a broad term for a group of natural pigments found in most organisms. Eumelanin is produced through a multistage chemical process known as melanogenesis, where the oxidation of the amino ...

). Animal skin coloration often comes about through specialized cells called

chromatophores Chromatophores are cells that produce color, of which many types are Biological pigment, pigment-containing cells, or groups of cells, found in a wide range of animals including amphibians, fish, reptiles, crustaceans and cephalopods. Mammals and ...

, which animals such as the octopus and chameleon can control to vary the animal's color. Many conditions affect the levels or nature of pigments in plant, animal, some

protista A protist () is any eukaryotic organism (that is, an organism whose cells contain a cell nucleus) that is not an animal, plant, or fungus. While it is likely that protists share a common ancestor (the last eukaryotic common ancestor), the exc ...

, or

fungus A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from t ...

cells. For instance, the disorder called

albinism Albinism is the congenital absence of melanin in an animal or plant resulting in white hair, feathers, scales and skin and pink or blue eyes. Individuals with the condition are referred to as albino. Varied use and interpretation of the term ...

affects the level of melanin production in animals. Pigmentation in organisms serves many biological purposes, including

camouflage Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the b ...

, mimicry, aposematism (warning), sexual selection and other forms of Signalling theory, signalling, photosynthesis (in plants), as well as basic physical purposes such as protection from sunburn. Pigment color differs from Color#Structural color, structural color in that pigment color is the same for all viewing angles, whereas structural color is the result of selective reflection or iridescence, usually because of multilayer structures. For example, butterfly wings typically contain structural color, although many butterflies have cells that contain pigment as well.

Pigments by chemical composition

* Cadmium pigments: cadmium sulfide, cadmium yellow, cadmium red, cadmium pigments, cadmium green, cadmium orange, cadmium pigments, cadmium sulfoselenide * Chromium pigments: chrome yellow and viridian, chrome green (viridian) * Cobalt pigments: cobalt violet, cobalt blue, cerulean blue, aureolin (cobalt yellow) * Copper pigments: Azurite, Han purple, Han blue,

, Malachite, Paris green,

, Phthalocyanine Green G,

* Iron oxide pigments: sanguine, caput mortuum (pigment), caput mortuum, Iron oxide red, oxide red, red ochre, yellow ochre, Venetian red,

, Sienna, raw sienna, burnt sienna, raw umber, burnt umber * Lead pigments: lead white, cremnitz white, Naples yellow, red lead,

* Manganese pigments: manganese violet, YInMn Blue, YInMn blue * Mercury (element), Mercury pigments:

* Titanium pigments: titanium yellow, titanium beige, titanium white, titanium black * Zinc pigments: zinc white, zinc ferrite, zinc yellow * Aluminum pigment: Aluminum powder * Carbon pigments: carbon black (including vine black, lamp black), ivory black (bone charcoal) * Ultramarine pigments (based on sulfur):

, ultramarine green shade * Barium: barium sulfate, barium white (lithopone)

Biological and organic

* Biological origins: alizarin, gamboge, Carmine, cochineal red, rose madder, Indigo dye, indigo, Indian yellow, Tyrian purple * Non biological Organic compound, organic: quinacridone, magenta, phthalo green, phthalo blue, pigment red 170, diarylide yellow

Notes

References

* * * * * * * * *

External links

Pigments through the ages

ColourLex Pigment Lexicon

Earliest evidence of art found
* Sarah Lowengar
The Creation of Color in Eighteenth-century Europe
Columbia University Press, 2006 * , Chemical Heritage Foundation * , Chemical Heritage Foundation
The Quest for the Next Billion-Dollar Color
{{Authority control Pigments, Painting materials