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Why Oil Paint Is So Expensive | So Expensive - YouTube
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[Narrator] Oil paint is simple.
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At its most basic, it's just
a mixture of oil and pigment.
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But depending on the color and quality,
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a liter of this paint could cost you
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between $285 and $1,000.
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So what is it that makes
this paint so special,
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and why is it so expensive?
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Oil paint has been used
for hundreds of years.
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It's made from a drying oil,
like flaxseed, and pigment,
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sometimes with fillers
and thickeners added.
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When mixed and crushed, these ingredients
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bind and thicken to
form a permanent paint.
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While the rise of oil paint
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is associated with the Renaissance,
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paintings using poppy-seed oil
have been dated as far back
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as seventh-century Afghanistan.
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But there's one key reason
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this paint hasn't ever been cheap:
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Pigments cost a lot of money.
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Tegen Hager-Suart: So in a good oil paint,
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you're gonna be looking
for a high pigment loading
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and a good-quality pigment
in that high pigment loading.
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So it doesn't matter if
you have loads of pigment
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if it's a bad-quality pigment.
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You're looking for lightfastness
so it doesn't fade,
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and tests on lightfastness
that have been going on
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for generations, in
fact, for some pigments,
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so you're not gonna create a masterpiece
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and then 50 years down the line
it's completely washed out.
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[Narrator] The highest-quality oil paint
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can be up to 75% pigment,
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and throughout history, the
most sought-after pigments
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have been worth far more
than their weight in gold.
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And that's because they take a lot of work
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to discover and to make.
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The favorite imperial color
in Roman times, Tyrian purple,
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was a bright pigment made
from the glands of sea snails,
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and it could take 12,000 snails
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to make just 2 grams of the color.
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Indian yellow was originally made from
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the urine of cows fed
only on mango leaves,
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and in the 16th to 19th centuries,
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mummy brown was actually made with
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the ground-up remains of Egyptian mummies,
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and while the color was
perfect for some flesh tones,
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we quickly ran out of mummies to use.
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Hager-Suart: Pigments do
dramatically change the cost,
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and in professional
levels, you'll have series,
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so you'll have probably a series one,
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well, up to series seven.
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The higher the number,
the more expensive it is.
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And that's due to the pigments,
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how difficult they are to obtain,
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where they come from,
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and also how in-demand they are
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as a product in the real world.
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[Narrator] Possibly the
most valuable, though,
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was ultramarine, literally
meaning "beyond the sea,"
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as it had to be mined in Afghanistan.
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It was made from lapis lazuli,
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which in its purest pigment form
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can still cost up to $30,000 per kilo.
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The gemstone was used to make the pigment
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until a synthetic version
was created in 1826,
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and the vibrant blue was valued
so highly in the Renaissance
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that it was generally reserved
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for painting the robes of the Virgin Mary.
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Synthetic versions of
many of these pigments
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have now been created,
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and while this means many are cheaper,
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some can still be difficult to produce.
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Cobalt blue, for example,
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has to be made by heating its components
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to 1,200 degrees Celsius.
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And once you have these pigments,
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they're tricky to work with.
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Winsor & Newton has been making oil paints
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for almost 200 years,
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and its factory in France produces
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over 5 million liters of paint each year.
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Dominique Murzeau: In fact,
produce paint is like cooking.
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So here you have mixing,
so we are mixing components
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like pigments and other
additives like oil.
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We are then milling.
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So it depends. We're using
different type of machines
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So we're using granite, ceramic, or steel.
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Then we are testing, OK,
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so testing the viscosity of the grain
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and, of course, the color.
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Hager-Suart: The whole
process is so select.
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So for every single pigment,
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you need to handle it in a particular way.
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So it will need a particular
amount of oil with it,
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and that ratio changes for every pigment.
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And you're going to need to grind it
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to a particular fineness,
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and actually even with the same pigment
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the milling and the grinding
will affect the color you have.
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So if you overgrind you might
end up with something duller,
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or with another color if
you grind it very fine;
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you might end up with a
purple rather than a blue.
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[Narrator] The research and
testing for these colors
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can take months or even
years to get right.
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Small samples of each
color are made in a lab
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to measure consistency and lightfastness.
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Above all else, the quality of oil paint
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needs to be reliable,
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as professional artists
need to guarantee that
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what they're working on now
will last for hundreds of years.
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And despite comparatively
new paints like acrylic,
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oil still remains an artist favorite.
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Hager-Suart: We've still got works
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that are still beautiful and relevant
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from the 15th century.
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And it's also, it's durable,
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and it has this ability to
layer, where you can scrape back,
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you can keep working,
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you can work on a piece for
years and keep on redoing it,
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and it gives every piece this history.
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And, you know, the materials
themselves are expensive.
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They're reliable. They're gorgeous.
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I mean, they come out
of the painting at you.
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