ABSTRACT
Man has made great efforts through the ages to mimic the fascinating range of colors with which nature supplies us. Dyeing and painting are the two basic methods of coloring materials; both are believed to date back to prehistoric times. In the case of dyeing, soluble colored compounds are attached chemically to textile fibers from animals or plants. These fibers degrade easily and the oldest remains are only about 3000 years old. Painting uses a suspension of pigments insoluble in a supporting medium to color surfaces. Because pigments are very stable, the early use of natural minerals (yellow and red ocher, white chalk, and lampblack) mixed with binders (e.g., blood, milk, egg) for the decoration of walls or bodies can be proven. Basically, inorganic pigments have been used up to the last century, where synthetic organic pigments have been invented. In parallel, many different methods were developed to investigate physical and chemical properties of both pigments and dyes. Because electron microscopy is a tool mainly used on small particles, this chapter concentrates on pigments and will not discuss the wide world of dyes.
