Though house paint decorates our homes and protects their surfaces from rot, drying, and the elements, we often take it for granted. But this unassuming product does in fact have a long and interesting history which cannot be easily summarized. However, a short history of paint can be just as fascinating as the long version. In order to expound on house paint's evolution, we have presented some snapshots to illustrate our human needs of security and beauty in our dwellings.
Forty millennia ago, cave inhabitants combined various substances with animal fat to make paint, which they used to add pictures and colors to the walls of their crude homes. Contrast that with today's
Seattle construction methods. Hematite, manganese oxide, red and yellow ochre, and charcoal were used as "paint". Ancient Egyptian painters mixed an oil or fat base with color elements like semiprecious stones, ground glass, earth, animal blood, or lead around 3150 B.C. These ancient peoples preferred black, white, red, blue, green, and yellow. At the turn of the 14th century, house painters in England created guilds, which established standards for the profession and kept trade secrets under lock and key. By the 17th century, new practices and technologies were shaking up the world of house paint even more.
In this time of constantly documented celebrity misconduct, some may not even remember what modesty was. For the Pilgrims, who populated the American colonies in the 17th century, modesty meant avoiding all displays of joy, wealth, or vanity. Even painting your home was deemed very immodest and highly sacrilegious. In 1630, a Charlestown preacher ran afoul of the growing society's mores by decorating his home's interior with paint; he was brought up on criminal charges of sacrilege.
Even colonial Puritanism, however, failed to silence the demand for house paint. Anonymous authors wrote "cookbooks" that offered recipes for various kinds and colors of paint. One popular process, known as the Dutch method, combined lime and ground oyster shells to make a white wash, to which iron or copper oxide - for red or green color, respectively - could be added. These Colonial paint "cooks" often used food items like egg whites, milk, rice, and coffee.
From the 17th century until the 19th, oil and water were the primary bases for paint production. Each held certain colors better than others, and there were differences in cost and durability between them, too. Water-based paints were used for ceilings and plaster walls, and oils were used for joinery. Some homeowners wanted walls that looked like wood, marble, or bronze and ceilings that resembled a blue sky with puffy white clouds. Painters of the time routinely fulfilled such requests, which seem fairly eccentric by today's standards. In 1638, a historic home known as Ham House, located in Surrey, England, was renovated.