Fish on Colors That No Longer Exist
· One day John Wolfcub, who was working with BUEV at the time as a creative producer, dropped by the artist's studio.
BUEV was working on one of his canvases depicting mechanical fish swimming above a city, and he set the work aside for a minute to talk with John. Among the many stories, John shared, simply as a curious fact, an article he had just read about pigments that had vanished from history. BUEV's reaction was instant: "I'll make you those nonexistent colors. I'll imitate them with existing paints. You'll see, my next four fish paintings will have exactly that kind of background." And so, out of a friendly conversation and a joke, a cycle of four works was born, depicting mechanical fish flying above a city, each one set against the background of a color that no longer exists. Each canvas becomes an act of chromatic resurrection - a lost hue brought back to life by the artist's hand using only modern pigments.
1) Ultramarine
This rich blue was made from lapis lazuli - a rare stone brought by caravans all the way from Afghanistan. A single kilogram of the mineral yielded only about 30 grams of paint. In 1826, the French chemist Jean-Baptiste Guimet invented a synthetic equivalent, and true ultramarine disappeared from palettes.
2) Scheele's Green
Napoleon's favorite color - it covered the wallpaper of his bedroom on the island of Saint Helena. Unfortunately, the pigment was arsenic-based. In a damp climate, the paint released a poisonous gas; according to one theory, it was precisely this green that undermined the emperor's health over the years. Arsenic pigments were not completely banned until the 1960s.
3) Tyrian Purple
In Rome, only the emperor had the right to wear it. It was extracted from the glands of murex sea snails, and about 10,000 snails were needed for a single gram of dye, which nearly drove them to extinction. Technically, the dye can still be produced today, but at a price of around 2,500 euros per gram, it can rightly be counted among the vanished colors.
· Role : Creative Producer
BUEV was working on one of his canvases depicting mechanical fish swimming above a city, and he set the work aside for a minute to talk with John. Among the many stories, John shared, simply as a curious fact, an article he had just read about pigments that had vanished from history. BUEV's reaction was instant: "I'll make you those nonexistent colors. I'll imitate them with existing paints. You'll see, my next four fish paintings will have exactly that kind of background." And so, out of a friendly conversation and a joke, a cycle of four works was born, depicting mechanical fish flying above a city, each one set against the background of a color that no longer exists. Each canvas becomes an act of chromatic resurrection - a lost hue brought back to life by the artist's hand using only modern pigments.
1) Ultramarine
This rich blue was made from lapis lazuli - a rare stone brought by caravans all the way from Afghanistan. A single kilogram of the mineral yielded only about 30 grams of paint. In 1826, the French chemist Jean-Baptiste Guimet invented a synthetic equivalent, and true ultramarine disappeared from palettes.
2) Scheele's Green
Napoleon's favorite color - it covered the wallpaper of his bedroom on the island of Saint Helena. Unfortunately, the pigment was arsenic-based. In a damp climate, the paint released a poisonous gas; according to one theory, it was precisely this green that undermined the emperor's health over the years. Arsenic pigments were not completely banned until the 1960s.
3) Tyrian Purple
In Rome, only the emperor had the right to wear it. It was extracted from the glands of murex sea snails, and about 10,000 snails were needed for a single gram of dye, which nearly drove them to extinction. Technically, the dye can still be produced today, but at a price of around 2,500 euros per gram, it can rightly be counted among the vanished colors.
· Role : Creative Producer
