The Earliest Painting

The Earliest Painting
The earliest known paintings, representing animals hunted for food, were made by Stone Age artists on the walls if caves of Lascaux, in France, around 25,000 BC. The cave contains nearly 2,000 figures. Over 900 can be identified as animals.

The first colors were such naturally occurring pigments as red made from iron oxide, yellow and brown from clay ochre, and black from soot. It was not until 3000 BC that blue and green were obtained by grinding up lapis lazuli and malachite.

The first synthetic pigments were developed after a British chemist, William Perkin, discovered a dye called mauveine. The first truly synthetic medium, based ion coal tar, was develop in Germany towards the end of the 19th century.
The Earliest Painting