Tag: Artists’ materials
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A brief history of watercolors. Part II: Materials and techniques
by Lucian Cristian Ratoiu — Last updated 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…
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A brief history of watercolors. Part I: From technical experiment to fine art tradition
by Lucian Cristian Ratoiu — Last updated 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,…
