Though consumer house paints and coatings 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. A brief history, however, is better than no history at all. 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.
40,000 thousand years 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. Red and yellow ochre, hematite, manganese oxide, and charcoal were all employed as color elements. Starting around 3150 B.C., The original olde school Eggies painters mixed a base of oil or fat with color elements like ground glass or semiprecious stones, lead, earth, or animal blood. 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, technology and new practices in house paint grew.
In this era of reality TV and manufactured celebrities, it can be hard to remember the definition of modesty. In the 17th century, the Pilgrims, who populated the American colonies, believed that modesty was the avoidance of all displays of wealth, joy, or vanity. Painting one's house was considered highly immodest and even sacrilegious. In 1630, a rebellious Charlestown preacher decorated his house's interior with paint and was thus brought up on criminal charges of sacrilege.
This colonial Puritanism could not stop the demand for house paint, though. Unknown authors published "cookbooks" that had recipes for different paints. 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.
Water and oil were the main bases for paint creation from the 17th century to the 19th. Each held certain colors better than others, and there were differences in cost and durability between them, too. Ceilings and plaster walls generally called for water paints, while joinery demanded oils. Some homeowners wanted walls that looked like wood, marble, or bronze and ceilings that resembled a blue sky with puffy white clouds. Painters of this period would fulfill these requests. In 1638, a historic home known as Ham House, located in Surrey, England, was renovated.The multi-step process involved the application of primer, an undercoat or two, and a finishing coat of paint to elaborate paneling and cornices throughout the house. At this point in paint's evolution, pigment and oil were mixed by hand to make a stiff paste - a practice still employed today. If a pigment is well-ground, it should disperse almost entirely in oil. Before the 18th century, hand-grinding often exposed painters to an excess of white-lead powder, which could bring about lead poisoning. Even though lead paint was toxic, it was popular during this time because of its durability, and even today it's difficult to replicate that hardiness in paint. Fortunately, painters eventually added air extraction systems to their workshops, thus reducing the health risks of grinding lead-based pigment. Not until 1978 did the U.S. finally ban the sale of lead house paint.
Paint production transformed dramatically during the 1700s. In 1700 in Boston, MA, the first American paint mill opened its doors. In 1718, the Englishman Marshall Smith devised a "Machine or Engine for the Grinding of Colours," which prompted a sort of arms race with regard to grinding pigment efficiently. In 1741, the English company Emerton and Manby publicized the "Horse-Mills" that it used to grind its pigment, thus allowing them to sell paint at unbeatable prices. Elizabeth Emerton, one of the owners, said, "One Pound of Colour ground in a Horse-Mill will paint twelve Yards of Work, whereas Colour ground any other Way, will not do half that Quantity ."
As any steampunk aficionado will tell you, the turn of the 19th century meant the rise of steam power. In fact, most paint mills during this time period ran on steam. Nontoxic zinc oxide became a usable base for white pigment, thanks to the Europeans, during this time; it came to the US in 1855.
Roller mills had begun to grind pigment and grain by the end of the 1800s, and the guild system begun in England became a trade union network. Mass production of paint was no longer a pipe dream, and linseed oil, a cheap binding agent that also helped protect wood, made it even easier.
Decorating a home with paint became extremely popular in the 19th century. After all, paint made surfaces washable and, by sealing in wood's natural oils, kept walls from becoming either too moist or too dry.
Sherwin Williams, a giant behemoth in the paint world today, was founded in 1866. Sherwin Williams was the first manufacturer of ready-to-use paint, and its original product, raw umber in oil, came onto the market in 1873. Soon after that, cofounder Henry Sherwin developed a resealable tin can.
Another current industry heavyweight, Benjamin Moore, began operations in 1883. Twenty-four years passed, and the company created a research department headed up by one chemist. Since then, Benjamin Moore Paint has contributed a great deal to paint technology, but the company's color-matching system, unveiled in 1982 and entirely computer-based, is still considered by many to be its most noteworthy achievement in the 21st century, paint remains a formidable moneymaker; roughly $20.9 billion of the stuff was sold in 2006 alone.
Though house paint is most frequently applied to the surfaces of a home, many artists have used it to bring their canvases to life. John Frost, an American painter who began his career in 1919, employed the use of house paint to paint the history of his hometown, a tiny village called Marblehead in Massachusetts. Picasso and some of his peers used house paint in their work. Even contemporary artists, like Nik Ehm, use house paint on occasion.
Mid-20th century is when necessity became the mother of invention. World War II led to a dearth of linseed oil, so chemists combined alcohols and acids to make alkyds, artificial resins that could substitute for natural oil.
Most house paint today is acrylic, or water-based, paint; however, milk paint, which reached the height of its popularity in the 19th century for its unassuming hues, is cropping up again thanks to the environmental movement.
commercial painting company has origins dating to pre-history.
To be general, milk paint doesn't contain volatile organic compounds, commonly known as VOCs. Latex paint, however, does contain VOCs, making them potentially dangerous to pets and humans. Extended exposure to VOCs can lead to organ or nerve damage, and some may be carcinogenic. Thankfully, most paint companies have low or zero VOC paint available. By EPA standards, the term, "zero-VOC," means that each liter of paint has less than 5 grams of VOCs. Other non-VOC alternates are clay and water-based paints. If you have allergies and/or chemical sensitivity, Low VOC Paint are a must. Low VOC paints have great advantages no matter what the circumstances, because their relative lack of odor makes rooms livable faster.
Despite its outward simplicity, paint has adjusted over the millennium to conform to our aesthetic, financial, and health needs. While paint may seem basic, it's almost miraculous that it can elevate our mood so drastically. The next time you open a can of paint, consider how far through additional time it's traveled to add a little beauty to your life…