From Mineral, Colour
From Mineral, Colour provides a technical vision of the artistic production from the upper Palaeolithic. The representations were made using the techniques of engraving, painting, drawing or even a combination of several of them. They were also aware of modelling, although we are focusing on painting and its application in wall art, a form in which the cave of Altamira is a clear touchstone.
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Colouring agents, pigments and ‘recipes’
The range of colours used is primarily divided between red and black, with just a handful of examples of yellow and purple shades and noticeable tonal varieties. The colouring agents also consisted in both organic substances and minerals:
Iron oxides: Including haematites and goethite, they provided reddish and yellow tones.
Kaolin and mica: They provided the very rare white tones.
Charcoal and manganese oxide: They provided the black tones, and the latter also provided purplish tones.
The technical complexity increased with the possibility of ‘recipes’, which consisted in mixtures of pigments to achieve different tones.
Application of pigments
Once the pigment was yielded from the aforementioned colouring agents, it was applied on the surface directly (with nothing between the support and the pigment) or indirectly (with tools like feathers, spatulas and brushes used between the pigment and the support).
Applying pigments offered a variety of resources like a stamping technique and dotting, which consisted in creating an area of colour through the juxtaposition of several or many dots. Another technique used to apply the pigment was spraying, in which the pigment is projected outward via a combination of blowing and an airbrush thanks to the ‘Venturi effect’.