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Pompeii artists painted the town red

Rossella Lorenzi

Discovery News

Tuesday, 2 November 2004

The walls of Pompeii were painted with red pigments that had curious properties (Image: iStockphoto)

The formula of the red, shiny and intense colour that dominated Pompeii's wall paintings 2000 years ago has been discovered by an Italian researcher.

Buried in the catastrophic eruption in 79 AD, the brilliant Pompeian red has been preserved forever by the lava of Mount Vesuvius and still makes an impressive show in several frescoes.

"Though it consists of simple cinnabar pigment, Pompeian red is really unique. It certainly stands out when compared to normal cinnabar paint layers," said Daniela Daniele, a researcher working at Berlin's Staatliche Museen.

Cinnabar is mercury (II) sulfide, the principal ore of mercury.

Daniele analysed the stratigraphies of some samples from Pompeian villas featuring the unique red and compared them to other ancient Roman wall paintings containing normal cinnabar paint layers.

Her aim was to discover why there was a dramatically different chromatic effect with the same mineral pigment.

In the case of Pompeian red, natural cinnabar was processed with particular care, which included what Daniele called "purification, grinding and dimensional control".

"The finer the grains are, the more brilliant and covering the colour is. But there is much more," Daniele said.

the Pompeian Red is startling in it's intensity. Gorgeous!

Apparently a lot of the town had murals painted on the walls. It must have been overwhelming.

One of the art books I have in my used bookstore contains over a hundred stunning pictures of some of those recovered murals. The Romans considered sex just another aspect of life and many of their murals contained what to us today would be censored at all levels. It was not pornography, that is, a effort to titilate, but simply to portray normal life.

However, due to our current 'sensibilities', I cannot post a single one here or any other site , for that matter.

REDNECKCA

HANG ON REDNECK AND I WILL SEND YOU MY SECRET EMAIL ADDRESS SO THAT YOU CAN DISPOSE OF THEM DARN PICTURES BEFORE SUNDAY ASKS FOR THEM..K?

THE GOOD ONE WHO JUST ENJOYS ART, EH!

I cannot see no reason why you cannot publish those photos, purely for art and histories sake of course!!!

OK later today I will try to post one or two.

Here is some of the stuff from Pompeii. the first is a mural that must have taken a lot of work, and the following sculptures were carefully and skillfully done. Looks like a little S and M stuff.

Tha - tha - that's all, folks. It's too much work to scan and post.

REDNECKCA

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