Artists' Pigments

This is the 4th volume in the Artists’ Pigments series published initally by the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. and Oxford University Press.This volume is published by the National Gallery of Art in association with Archetype Publications The pigments covered in this volume are : – Pigments based on Carbon (by John Winter and Elisabeth West Fitzhugh) – Iron Oxide Pigments (natural and synthetic) (Kate Helwig) – Asphalt (Catarina Bothe) – Cobalt Blue (Ashok Roy) – Arylide (Hansa) Yellow Pigments (Susan Lake and Suzanne Lomax) This series is aimed : – For the practicing artist to learn a pigment’s color, hiding power, lightfastness, toxicity, compatibility – For the art historian to know how an artist worked, what pigments were used, whether they were pure or mixed, opaque or tranparent, layered or not – For the conservator to devise techniques necessary for care and conservation of works of art; to determine what is original, to repair damages, to compensate for missing portions of a painted surface – For the curator/connoisseur to know the history of manufacture and use of pigments to authenticate and assign probable dates to works of art – For the conservation scientist to learn identification methods used, including optical microscopy, microchemical tests, x-ray diffraction, infrared and reflectance spectrophotometry, and electron microscopy Review Volume 4 has the same high standard of content, clarity and production as its predecessors, making it easy to use for reference and enjoyable to browse ICON News September 2007