Historical journey of the color through discovery of pigments, naming and guidebooks

It is crucial that knowing the material that a color contains and knowing its chemistry in order to increase the quality of the art or design works to be produced and to make the artwork durable for many years. Besides, knowing the history of the paint shed light on the path of new discoveries that are dreamed or planned to be made in the future. The subject of color has been shaped by cultural, subjective, objective and conceptual mindsets throughout history, thus, the need to define and classify colors has emerged. Within the scope of this thesis research, the following questions are intended to be explained: The subject of when color was first discovered in history to be used as a dye, where its names came from, what purpose the first color guidebooks were made and what kind of changes they have undergone until today. In order to analyze where the name or the meaning attributed to a color comes from, it is necessary to know the historical development of the color and the material from which the color is obtained. Therefore, the first part of the dissertation includes information about the developments of color, starting from the first discovery of pigments and the examples of usages of dye were first encountered. In the second chapter, background of names that pigments and paint colors have, in which contexts they are named, how they are classified and why they need to be classified are discussed. This section also clarifies origins of meanings attributed to colors as, all kinds of naming on color contains a deep-rooted history and gives a clue about the history of color. In the third chapter, guidebooks that shape our day in the light of the researches and studies of chemists, physicists, geologists, mineralogists, theorists and artists are included. Eight different color books –which take an important place as the "initials" in history–, were examined on the axis of classifications made for the systematic sequence of colors, both theoretically and practically, with their old and current examples. Finally, color-specific works produced since 2018 are included in the fourth chapter to be considered as relevant outcomes of the topic. Some of these works were produced and exhibited within the scope of graduate projects, and some of them were carried out with an independent artistic approach during the thesis research process.