Diego Velazquez was one of the great painters of all time. He was a wealthy court painter who traveled extensively and had access to the full range of pigments available in the 17th century. In my last post I noted that, by modern standards, artists before the 19th century had an extremely limited selection of available pigments. Velazquez chose to use only a subset of those. If you are interested in what is known of his painting methods, a great book to get is Velazquez: the Technique of Genius, by Jonathan Brown and Carmen Garrido.
Here’s Velazquez’ usual palette (which he seldom deviated from throughout his career):
White: lead white mixed with calcite (calcium carbonate).
Yellow: yellow ochre, lead tin yellow, and (rarely) Naples yellow.
Red: vermilion, a red earth (red ochre, burnt sienna, etc.), and a red lake (equivalent to alizarin crimson or madder lake).
Blue: azurite, ultramarine blue, smalt (a dark blue pigment made from ground glass).
Brown: brown earth, an umber (raw or burnt).
Green: mixtures of azurite and lead tin yellow.
Purple: mixtures of red lake and azurite.
That’s it. Often he used fewer colors; in Coronation of the Virgin he used only five pigments.
He probably had a mixture of calcite and oil on his palette that he would add to mixtures that he wanted to be more transparent. More opaque passages often show evidence of some sort of protein (probably either hide glue or egg yolk) added to the paint. He sometimes added a lot of oil to the paint, which has resulted in some yellowing (but not as much as you might expect).
Thanks for the insight on Velázquez’s palette. It’s always interesting to compare palletes of the old masters.
DEAR SÄ°R, I WONDER HOW WAS “LEONARDO DA VÄ°NCÄ°’S PALET….
THANK YOU Ä°N ADVANCE
REGARDS
MURAT
@murat güneyligil -
Murat,
I’m not that familiar with Leonardo’s specific palette. So far as I know he used the limited set of colors available in Renaissance Italy, without major departures from the pigments selected by contemporary painters.
dear david, lots of time pased..ı would like to ask you another questions…
what is hide glue ?
what “painterly “means?
ı am on face book as “murat güneyligil-ressam”..ı would like to add you as a friend….
lots of love from izmir-turkiye (we do not say anymore turkey which is an animal not a state etc.)
murat your brother
youcan find me at any time from internet..my facebook account is available…. MURAT
Ä°T DOES NOT GÄ°VE MY CORRECT NAME Ä°N THÄ°S TEXT….BUT Ä°T Ä°S LÄ°KE Ä°N MY NAME Ä°N THE TÄ°TLE BOX
DEAR DAVÄ°D I am starting a new project in painting.the concept is anatolian culture,ottomans,bzyantium and the culture coming from where ottomans held the terretories for 600 years…besides Turkish baths in harem with girls…ı have already made one of that but needs some corrections to complete it.
ı am pushing myself to make progress with new color receipes-formulas and strugling with colors.ı am also trying to study new receipes instead of using black…mixing 4 colors to make look like black.
and ı understood that violet is the joker color gets into lots of mixtures.in addition to that viridian is an important color making black with some colors .ı reliezed since two years and using it.before that time viridian was not on my palette…(I NEED HELP ABOUT Ä°T)…so a bit ı started usieng notr-naturel colors as getting tints making grey…in the result of all of this painting has more natural look…ı admire the artist GEORGE BOTÄ°CH who lives in u.s.a but makes painting of paris cafes,shops…
ı am trying to sort it at his palette colors that he uses in his paintings.so ı am studing on one of his painting.
ı also trying to learn “notan”.but unfornutately ı could not find books about notan.on the contrary ı found new books which is about color recepies..and making false paintings …ı give lessons of painting in the internet via msn.. hopefully one of student lives in france he will send me the color recepie books of two.but ı have no chance to get the books about making false paintings and a book about light and color.
so ı am studying hardly..but as soon as ı get the books and the trade mark of rafael brushes ı will be better .ı use talens van gogh series but they are worn out easily.
WHÄ°CH TRADE MARK BRUSHES DO YOU ADVÄ°SE…..
BEST WÄ°SHES
MURAT–YOUR BROTHER….