Tyrian Purple
Tyrian Purple was a very coveted color in the Bronze Age 1600 BC. This color was very hard to make so own a piece of clothing this color was a symbol of status and extreme wealth. This was the case even more so when King Caesar decreed on he could wear Tyrian Purple. The reason this color was so rare and difficult to make is because to make even a single piece of clothing took thousands of sea snails as each one only produced a single drop of this pigment. The two primary sea snails that could be harvested to make this pigment were Murex Brandaris and Hexaplex Trunculus (depicted above). In this piece I wanted to focus the living creatures that were killed in the hundreds of thousands to acquires this rare purple pigment, paying homage in a way to these adorable creatures.
Terre Verte
In the renaissance era colorful pigments were very hard to acquire and most of the time toxic if ingested. One of the hardest colors to find and most expensive colors to buy was green. However, Terre Verte was made from soft earth and came in a variety of shade it was readily available and cheap yet most artist showed stubborn indifference to this pigment. It wasn’t until Jules Verne took this pigment to do the under painting of skin and published a book wilt all the ways you could use Terre Verte that it became wide spread and used by almost every artist of the time. I wanted to show this by drawing a hand reaching to pull a tube of Terre Verte paint out of a trash can.
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