A wash with colour

Abstract

The history of watercolour takes us back to the earliest times when raw, dry pigment was mixed with water to make soluble paint. Images of animals were painted with this material on the walls of caves in Prehistoric times. Later, the early Egyptians used watercolour to create funerary paintings on the walls inside the pyramids while the Chinese painted on silk with water-based dyes and ink. In the West during the Middle Ages, pigment was mixed with gum arabic and water and was used for manuscript illumination in monasteries.