Art materials & technical art history

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  INFRA-ART spectral data collections: watercolors

  by Ioana Maria Cortea — Published on October 22, 2025 — Reading time: 10 min Part of the INFRA-ART Spectral Data Collections article series Watercolor is among the most familiar and widely practiced painting media, yet its material behavior is uniquely complex — highly responsive to light, moisture, paper chemistry, and pigment composition. Unlike opaque paint read more

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  A brief history of watercolors. Part II: Materials and techniques

  by Lucian Cristian Ratoiu — Published on October 9, 2025 — Reading time: 18 min This article explores the material evolution of watercolor and how technical innovation shaped its artistic development. Beginning with William Reeves’s late-eighteenth-century color cakes and continuing through Winsor & Newton’s nineteenth-century pans and tubes, it traces the transition from hand-ground pigments to read more

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  A brief history of watercolors. Part I: From technical experiment to fine art tradition

  by Lucian Cristian Ratoiu — Published on September 24, 2025 — Reading time: 16 min This article traces the historical development of watercolor painting from its earliest material formulations in East Asia to its refinement and institutional recognition in Europe and beyond. It examines the technical evolution of the medium—its reliance on transparency, pigment chemistry, and read more

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  INFRA-ART spectral data collections: earth pigments

  by Ioana Maria Cortea — Published on September 2, 2025 — Reading time: 20 min Part of the INFRA-ART Spectral Data Collections article series Earth pigments are among the oldest materials used in human artistic expression. These naturally occurring pigments, derived from iron oxides, manganese compounds, clays, and other minerals, have been used since the earliest read more