conversation with a pigment (2023-2024)
transformative matter
Looking at the history of painting from perspectives other than the ‘mastered’ one, I began to learn about historical pigments, which were already known for their transformative behaviour within paintings. Cracking, wrinkling, bleeding, fading: their tendency to cause unintended physical transformations of the painting's surface made them fall from grace and set up their entrance into oblivion.
Looking at the history of painting from perspectives other than the ‘mastered’ one, I began to learn about historical pigments, which were already known for their transformative behaviour within paintings. Cracking, wrinkling, bleeding, fading: their tendency to cause unintended physical transformations of the painting's surface made them fall from grace and set up their entrance into oblivion.
Kassel Earth - Vandyke Brown
One of these historical pigments is Kassel Earth.
Around the German city Kassel, since the second half of the twentieth century, a city mainly recognised as the documenta venue, the pigment's name-giving matter was extracted as brown coal in its vicinity. The main historical sites of extraction remained active until the 1970s and 1980s.1
Kassel Earth originates from million-year-old fossil plants.2 The primary organic properties of the pigment caused, until the 1990s, difficulties in the scientific identification of the pigment following existing conservational approaches. Therefore, technical analyses documenting the pigment's presence in paintings were, for the longest time, relatively rare. To trace the pigments' travels, use, and behaviour, scholars had to rely mainly on written sources of painters and painting theorists.3
Regarding its material behaviour, the pigment was, over the centuries, subjected towards conflicting debates about its lightfastness, which was regularly contested and denied.4 A fading and, therefore, failing pigment when it comes to the desire for one's outlasting mastery. Although the pigment caused regular debate about its unruly character, it was for centuries beloved for its warm translucent hue. Since the late sixteenth century, painters in the Netherlands used it for loose underpaintings or nested it in the pompous draperies populating their canvases or the delicate garments and collars of the portraited bourgeoisie.They modelled their pale faces with the help of the pigment's soft shades from the dramatic background scenery.
Especially the painter Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) was said to have held such high esteem for the pigment that later generations renamed the pigment after him Vandyke Brown.5 Van Dyck developed his successful career as a portrait painter in Antwerp, profiting from the early capitalist structures. The city established a position as a centre of colonial trade, including importing various painting materials as valuable commodities.6 A rising merchant class could commission portraits to demonstrate their newly gained wealth, whereas the nobility still held on to this tradition. By approaching the pigment Kassel Earth / Vandyke Brown today as a time capsule on its own, it can tie together different threats of growth.
Its forceful extraction took place in parallel with the extraction of brown coal as fossil fuels, unleashing the fiction of all-time availability of energy resources utilised as the exploitative forces of capitalist production processes.7
What does the pigment's resistance against its visibility in representations of growth and blind exploitation tell us beyond the painter's narrative?
Nora, my childhood friend, lives and studies in Kassel.
Being far away from the pigment's organic matter, I approached Nora with a letter to imagine with me what we could learn from the pigment's unruliness within the painting and beyond.
1 Robert L. Feller, and Ruth M. Johnston-Feller “Vandyke Brown - Cassel Earth, Cologne Earth,” in Artist’s Pigments: A Handbook of Their History and Characteristics, Vol. 3, ed. Elisabeth West Fitzhugh (London: Archetype Publications, 1997), 157-190.
2 Georgina Maria Languri, “ Molecular studies of Asphalt, Mummy and Kassel earth pigments: their characterisation, identification and effect on the drying of traditional oil paint” (doctoral thesis): 74, https://dare.uva.nl/search?identifier=9576cd3b-89a2-456f-9cb2-42f4aa2ee8d1.
3 Feller, Johnston-Feller “Vandyke Brown - Cassel Earth, Cologne Earth,” 162.
4 Feller, Johnston-Feller “Vandyke Brown - Cassel Earth, Cologne Earth,” 171-172.
5 Feller, Johnston-Feller “Vandyke Brown - Cassel Earth, Cologne Earth,” 164.
6 Sigrid Holmwood, “The Peasant Paints: Expanding Painting Decolonially through Planting and Pigment-making” (doctoral thesis, University of London, Goldsmiths College, 2021),34, https://doi.org/10.25602/GOLD.00030355.
7 Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, Aaron Vansintjan, The Future is Degrowth. A Guide to a World beyond Capitalism, (London, Brooklyn: Verso), 65.
One of these historical pigments is Kassel Earth.
Around the German city Kassel, since the second half of the twentieth century, a city mainly recognised as the documenta venue, the pigment's name-giving matter was extracted as brown coal in its vicinity. The main historical sites of extraction remained active until the 1970s and 1980s.1
Kassel Earth originates from million-year-old fossil plants.2 The primary organic properties of the pigment caused, until the 1990s, difficulties in the scientific identification of the pigment following existing conservational approaches. Therefore, technical analyses documenting the pigment's presence in paintings were, for the longest time, relatively rare. To trace the pigments' travels, use, and behaviour, scholars had to rely mainly on written sources of painters and painting theorists.3
Regarding its material behaviour, the pigment was, over the centuries, subjected towards conflicting debates about its lightfastness, which was regularly contested and denied.4 A fading and, therefore, failing pigment when it comes to the desire for one's outlasting mastery. Although the pigment caused regular debate about its unruly character, it was for centuries beloved for its warm translucent hue. Since the late sixteenth century, painters in the Netherlands used it for loose underpaintings or nested it in the pompous draperies populating their canvases or the delicate garments and collars of the portraited bourgeoisie.They modelled their pale faces with the help of the pigment's soft shades from the dramatic background scenery.
Especially the painter Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) was said to have held such high esteem for the pigment that later generations renamed the pigment after him Vandyke Brown.5 Van Dyck developed his successful career as a portrait painter in Antwerp, profiting from the early capitalist structures. The city established a position as a centre of colonial trade, including importing various painting materials as valuable commodities.6 A rising merchant class could commission portraits to demonstrate their newly gained wealth, whereas the nobility still held on to this tradition. By approaching the pigment Kassel Earth / Vandyke Brown today as a time capsule on its own, it can tie together different threats of growth.
Its forceful extraction took place in parallel with the extraction of brown coal as fossil fuels, unleashing the fiction of all-time availability of energy resources utilised as the exploitative forces of capitalist production processes.7
What does the pigment's resistance against its visibility in representations of growth and blind exploitation tell us beyond the painter's narrative?
Nora, my childhood friend, lives and studies in Kassel.
Being far away from the pigment's organic matter, I approached Nora with a letter to imagine with me what we could learn from the pigment's unruliness within the painting and beyond.
1 Robert L. Feller, and Ruth M. Johnston-Feller “Vandyke Brown - Cassel Earth, Cologne Earth,” in Artist’s Pigments: A Handbook of Their History and Characteristics, Vol. 3, ed. Elisabeth West Fitzhugh (London: Archetype Publications, 1997), 157-190.
2 Georgina Maria Languri, “ Molecular studies of Asphalt, Mummy and Kassel earth pigments: their characterisation, identification and effect on the drying of traditional oil paint” (doctoral thesis): 74, https://dare.uva.nl/search?identifier=9576cd3b-89a2-456f-9cb2-42f4aa2ee8d1.
3 Feller, Johnston-Feller “Vandyke Brown - Cassel Earth, Cologne Earth,” 162.
4 Feller, Johnston-Feller “Vandyke Brown - Cassel Earth, Cologne Earth,” 171-172.
5 Feller, Johnston-Feller “Vandyke Brown - Cassel Earth, Cologne Earth,” 164.
6 Sigrid Holmwood, “The Peasant Paints: Expanding Painting Decolonially through Planting and Pigment-making” (doctoral thesis, University of London, Goldsmiths College, 2021),34, https://doi.org/10.25602/GOLD.00030355.
7 Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, Aaron Vansintjan, The Future is Degrowth. A Guide to a World beyond Capitalism, (London, Brooklyn: Verso), 65.
details of paintings by Anthony van Dyck that are shown to contain the pigment Vandyke Brown
(ASHOK ROY, “The National Gallery Van Dycks: Technique and Development,” National Gallery Technical Bulletin 20 (1999): 50–83, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42616131.)
Two weeks later, I received a response from Nora. Besides a letter, in which she shared her thoughts with me, she send me two alternatives suggestions of Kassel Earth from which I made two pigments.
Coordinates: 51.319804,9.462250
Kassel - Tannenwäldchen.
“I chose this place because it is my personal resting place in Kassel. It's a small wood in the middle of the city. It radiates peace and quiet. I associate brown coal with deforestation and this forest, precisely because it is in the middle of the city, works against that.”
Nora Conrad (1996, D) studied sociology in Mainz and is currently completing her master’s degree in sustainable economics with a focus on sustainable development chains at the University of Kassel.
Kassel - Tannenwäldchen.
“I chose this place because it is my personal resting place in Kassel. It's a small wood in the middle of the city. It radiates peace and quiet. I associate brown coal with deforestation and this forest, precisely because it is in the middle of the city, works against that.”
Nora Conrad (1996, D) studied sociology in Mainz and is currently completing her master’s degree in sustainable economics with a focus on sustainable development chains at the University of Kassel.
Coordinates: 51.315625,9.399869
Near Herkules Kassel
“I chose this area because brown coal was mined here in the 16th century (see map). Nowadays, however, there is no longer any evidence of this; instead, the area is known for Hercules. Hercules is an early 18th century copper statue of the Greek demigod Heracles. It is surrounded by a breathtaking natural panorama in the Bergpark (UNESCO World Heritage Site). At the end of the park, Wilhelmshöhe Palace sits enthroned in all its splendor, reminiscent of the glorious times of bygone eras. Old works of art are still on display there today, including an impressive collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings from the 17th century with numerous masterpieces by Rubens, Frans Hals, Van Dyck and Jordaens. The collection of works by Rembrandt is one of the largest in the world. Is it possible that there are remains of the Kassel earth here? I took the soil from a place that had already been dynamically churned up by the weather.”
Near Herkules Kassel
“I chose this area because brown coal was mined here in the 16th century (see map). Nowadays, however, there is no longer any evidence of this; instead, the area is known for Hercules. Hercules is an early 18th century copper statue of the Greek demigod Heracles. It is surrounded by a breathtaking natural panorama in the Bergpark (UNESCO World Heritage Site). At the end of the park, Wilhelmshöhe Palace sits enthroned in all its splendor, reminiscent of the glorious times of bygone eras. Old works of art are still on display there today, including an impressive collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings from the 17th century with numerous masterpieces by Rubens, Frans Hals, Van Dyck and Jordaens. The collection of works by Rembrandt is one of the largest in the world. Is it possible that there are remains of the Kassel earth here? I took the soil from a place that had already been dynamically churned up by the weather.”
Dear Ida,
I would like to tell you about my impressions of the past few days. For me, the story about brown coal in Kassel and the pigment Kassel Earth was very new, and even after conversations with my fellow students, I realised that the information is not very present in Kassel.
[…]
At the beginning, I found it difficult to engage with the pigment, as my personal perspective is heavily influenced by rational-economic thinking, even though I question this within the framework of my studies in sustainability economics. Initially, I saw the pigment as a product that was unsuitable and qualitatively insufficient for painting due to its nature, and therefore had to be discarded. As soon as I broke through my perspective, I was able to listen to the history of the pigment.
The pigment protested, it became more uncomfortable to work with, dried slowly and faded in the light. You described this resistance as loud and bold action. This confused me at first, as I had perceived the pigment's action as exhaustion - it had vanished, faded away. But then I realised that it was precisely through this disappearance and the resulting confusion and inadequacy that the pigment was able to rebel against its assigned role. The pigment had not been listened to before; disappearing was its way of finding a voice. Its way of being loud was to become silent.
[…]
I would like to tell you about my impressions of the past few days. For me, the story about brown coal in Kassel and the pigment Kassel Earth was very new, and even after conversations with my fellow students, I realised that the information is not very present in Kassel.
[…]
At the beginning, I found it difficult to engage with the pigment, as my personal perspective is heavily influenced by rational-economic thinking, even though I question this within the framework of my studies in sustainability economics. Initially, I saw the pigment as a product that was unsuitable and qualitatively insufficient for painting due to its nature, and therefore had to be discarded. As soon as I broke through my perspective, I was able to listen to the history of the pigment.
The pigment protested, it became more uncomfortable to work with, dried slowly and faded in the light. You described this resistance as loud and bold action. This confused me at first, as I had perceived the pigment's action as exhaustion - it had vanished, faded away. But then I realised that it was precisely through this disappearance and the resulting confusion and inadequacy that the pigment was able to rebel against its assigned role. The pigment had not been listened to before; disappearing was its way of finding a voice. Its way of being loud was to become silent.
[…]
“Which alternative stories can pigments tell - propose - conserve?”
left: experiments with Kassel Earth on chalk ground. The pigment has a significantly slow drying time and needs to be grinded into a large amount of oil until the oil acts as a binder. This material behaviour causes strong visible effects on the canvas.
right: soil on the island Brännö, Sweden, during a collective scavenging walk for possible pigments
left: experiments with Kassel Earth on chalk ground. The pigment has a significantly slow drying time and needs to be grinded into a large amount of oil until the oil acts as a binder. This material behaviour causes strong visible effects on the canvas.
right: soil on the island Brännö, Sweden, during a collective scavenging walk for possible pigments
documentation of a collective scavenging walk on the island Brännö, Sweden. Digging up small amounts of “earth” and speculating about what wants to be conserved as a pigment and what might resist.