Chromatlas

Pigment

Vermilion and cinnabar

Ground from a mercury ore, then cooked up by alchemists, vermilion was painting's great red for centuries.

Made from
Mercury sulfide (cinnabar, or mercury + sulfur)
Synthesis
China by c. 4th century BCE; Europe by the 8th–9th century
Replaced by
Cadmium red, 20th century

Cinnabar is a heavy red mineral, mercury sulfide, and ground cinnabar is the pigment vermilion. People used it at Çatalhöyük in Turkey around 8000–7000 BCE, making it one of the oldest paints after the earth pigments. Rome's main source was the Almadén mine in Spain, worked by prisoners because mercury is poisonous; Pliny says the ore was shipped to Rome under seal at a fixed price. It colored the walls of Pompeii's Villa of the Mysteries.

Mining was dangerous, so people learned to make it. Heat mercury with sulfur and you get black mercury sulfide, which turns brilliant red when sublimed or ground. Chinese alchemists probably did this by the 4th century BCE, and the method reached Europe by the 8th or 9th century (see alchemy). Cennino Cennini noted that the longer you grind it, the better the red.

From the Renaissance to the 1900s vermilion was painters' main bright red, and in China it colored the famous red lacquer. It has two flaws: it's toxic, and on walls it can darken to purplish grey or black as light breaks it down, which is why some old frescoes have black patches where red once was. In the 20th century cadmium red replaced it, though Munch still used vermilion in The Scream (1893).

The app's vermilion is an orange-leaning red, warmer than crimson and carmine; Kandinsky wrote that it has the charm of flame. Oddly, its name comes from Latin vermiculus, 'little worm', though vermilion is a mineral red, not an insect red like kermes.

Swatches

Colors

Sources

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