As home owners and designers take house paint for granted as the main, directly economical way to decorate our homes and protect surfaces against drying, rot, and the elements. Yet this seemingly simple product has a long, fascinating history – much too long and fascinating to define in just one essay. 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 protection and beauty in our dwellings.
In the beginning, cavemen would mix certain substances with animal fat to create paint; they would then use the paint to draw pictures and add colors on their walls. Contrast that with today’s house painting tips. Hematite, manganese oxide, red and yellow ochre, and charcoal were used as “paint”. Centuries-old 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. White, black, blue, red, yellow, and green were their hues of choice. In England, around the turn of the 14th century, house painters started guilds that established standards for their profession and kept trade secrets secret. By the 17th century, new practices and technologies were shaking up the world of house paint even more.
In this era of reality TV and manufactured celebrities, it can be hard to remember the definition of modesty. For the Pilgrims, who populated the American colonies in the 17th century, modesty meant avoiding all displays of joy, wealth, or vanity. Painting one’s house was considered highly immodest, and even sacrilegious. In 1630, a Charlestown religious leader 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.
All of this colonial Puritanism could not stop the demand for house paint, though. Anonymous authors wrote “cookbooks” that offered recipes for various kinds and colors of paint. One oft-used process, called the “Dutch method,” mixed ground oyster shells and lime which made a white wash; iron or copper oxide for red or green color, respectively could then be added to the mix. Colonial paint “cooks” also used items from the pantry, including milk, egg whites, coffee, and rice, to turn out their illegal product.
From the 17th century until the 19th, oil and water were the all important bases for paint production. Each held certain colors better than others, and there were differences in benefit and durability between them, too. Ceilings and plaster walls generally called for water paints, while joinery demanded oils. Often times, homeowners would request walls that looked like marble, wood, or bronze and ceilings that looked like a blue sky with fat 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.