Section 05
Materials
The linen, the pigments and the paint-makers by name — what figure painters actually build with.
Lead white on the knife. — Lead White: Why the Best Ground Is Also the Most Dangerous.
Photo: Stephen Leonardi / Pexels- 01
Lead White: Why the Best Ground Is Also the Most Dangerous
Lead white (flake white, Cremnitz white) as a material — its history in European painting from the Renaissance, the toxicology known by the seventeenth century, its EU regulatory status as of 2023, and which manufacturers (Williamsburg, Michael Harding, Old Holland) still produce it and under what conditions. A factual account, not a purchasing recommendation.
- 02
Claessens and the Linen That Comes Off the Same Belgian Looms It Always Did
Belgian linen as a painting support — the specific properties of the weave, the Claessens mill in Wevelgem, and how the material compares to cotton duck in terms of texture, tensile strength and ground absorption. Covers rabbit-skin glue sizing as the traditional preparation.
- 03
The Kolinsky Sable and the Import Ban That Changed What Painters Could Buy
Kolinsky sable (Mustela sibirica) as a brush material — the specific hair properties that distinguish it from other sables, the US Fish and Wildlife import restrictions that came into force in 2014, and the response from Winsor & Newton and other manufacturers. What painters currently use as a result.
- 04
Four Colours Are Enough If They Are Zorn's Four
The Zorn palette — ivory black, yellow ochre, vermilion or cadmium red, lead white — as a functional system for flesh tones, and the argument about whether Zorn himself used it consistently. Covers the palette's adoption in contemporary atelier practice and its limits as a general-purpose system.
- 05
Munsell Gave Flesh a Number, and Some Painters Found That Useful
The Munsell colour system (hue, value, chroma) as applied to figure painting — how Albert Munsell's 1905 notation maps onto the range of human skin tones, and how painters including Frank Reilly adapted it into a teaching system at the Art Students League. Covers the Munsell Book of Color as a physical object.
