Blacker than Black

Let’s talk pigments, the substances added to other objects to give our world a little color.  And then, we’ll talk about how some artists are engaging in a pigment war.

Shortly after the discovery of fire in prehistoric times, someone discovered that you could use charcoal to make dark marks on rocks and wood.  This was almost immediately followed by the discovery that mixing crushed charcoal with a watery clay paste produced a paint that could be used for cave paintings and rock art.   It probably didn’t take very long before a variety of pigments were sourced from minerals, plants, and animal sources.

Ancient civilizations such as the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans extensively used pigments in their art and architecture.  They developed techniques for extracting pigments from various natural sources, including minerals like malachite and lapis lazuli, plants like madder and saffron, and insects like cochineal.

During the Middle Ages, the production and trade of pigments became more organized, with centers of pigment production emerging in regions known for their natural resources.  Medieval artists used pigments like vermilion, ultramarine, and lead white in illuminated manuscripts, frescoes, and religious art.

The Renaissance and Baroque periods saw advancements in pigment technology, with artists experimenting with new pigments and techniques.  During this time, the availability of pigments expanded as trade routes opened, bringing exotic materials like Indian yellow and Brazilian green to Europe.

The Industrial Revolution brought rapid and significant changes to the pigment industry.  Synthetic pigments, produced from coal tar derivatives and other chemical compounds, were developed, leading to a wider range of colors and more affordable pigments.  Aniline dyes revolutionized the textile dyeing industry in the 19th century because they were less expensive to produce and offered a much wider range of colors than natural dyes.  Synthetic pigments like cadmium red and phthalo blue became popular among artists.  

In the 20th and 21st centuries, the pigment industry continued to innovate, with advancements in organic and inorganic pigment synthesis.  Today, artists have access to a vast array of pigments in various forms, including traditional powdered pigments, oil paints, watercolors, acrylics, and digital pigments used in digital art.  Some of the newer pigments are formulated by scientists who create compounds designed specifically for the way they either absorb or reflect certain wavelengths of light.

In 2014, Surrey NanoSystems announced the development of Vantablack, the black blackest black of anything black.  (If you say that out loud several times in a row, you’ll end up doing a bad impersonation of Dracula.)  According to its creators, this pigment is the "world's darkest material" absorbing up to 99.965% of visible light.  

If you will allow a very non-scientific explanation, Vantablack is a layer of almost perfectly hemispherical rods.  When light hits the surface of the material, the light is “trapped” by reflecting off the mesh of carbon nanotubes with almost none escaping as reflected light.  How big are these nanotubes?  About a millionth of a millimeter each, or roughly about one thousandth of a spider web.

Perhaps this is a case of a picture being worth a thousand words.  The photo at the right shows a crumpled piece of aluminum foil with part of the foil coated with Vantablack.  The coated area is just as crumpled as the rest of the foil. 

As you can imagine, there are a lot of people thinking about military applications for this product.  And there are a lot of artists who would like to experiment with it—but they can’t.

In 2014, Anish Kapoor, a British contemporary artist and sculptor, purchased the exclusive rights to the pigment from Surrey NanoSystems for an undisclosed price.  In the last decade, Kapoor has produced a whole series of works using the super pigment.  I’d show you a couple of pictures of them, but they are too black to make out any details.  (I do like the large round hole in the floor with both the bottom and the sides of the hole are painted with Vantablack—I’ll bet standing on the edge is frightening.)

Kapoor is not the first artist to hog a new pigment, and so far, he has resisted all efforts to allow other artists to even experiment with it.  While other artists had not shared a pigment that produced a tint or color, Kapoor was Bogarting the blackest black.  This was particularly upsetting to Stuart Semple, another British artist, and the founder of Culture Hustle, a London based online art store that specializes in exotic pigments.  Semple publicly denounced Kapoor for not allowing the rest of the art world to use the new pigment.

Semple had previously marketed pigments that claimed to the be the pinkest pink in the world or the greenest green.  I’m not really sure what those terms mean, since while we can easily define black as the absence of light, I’m not sure how to define the essence of pink.  Is it the presence of Barbie? 

Semple’s online store, available here, will gladly sell you a bottle of the ultimate pink or the greenest green, and they even have a new pigment, Black 4.0, that they claim—without proof—is even darker than Vantablack.  There is only one small condition, you have to check a little box next to this notice:

*Note: By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this material will not make it's way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.

Semple may be willing to stop the feud, however:  Culture Hustle also markets a line of luminescent pigments.  The website contains a notice that they will gladly ship Anish Kapoor those pigments free of charge.  As the notice claims:  “We want you to know how lovely it feels to #shareTheLight.”