Interesting Facts You Didn’t Know About Paint
When it comes to choosing paint colors for your home and tackling the project, you may not put much thought into the history behind the paint, the emotions emitted by colors, the variations of what paint colors symbolizes in various cultures, etc. Painting may seem like a pretty self-explanatory, monotonous task that just puts some splash onto your walls. Well, there are many interesting facts about paint that you may or may not know, some even odd, that we want to share. Check out Noel painting compilation of interesting paint facts.
- The White House is white because of its original lime-based whitewash used to protect its stone surface. It now gets painted on a yearly basis.
- The very first interior painting was done about 40,000 years ago in what is now France. The paintings were done by prehistoric cave dwellers who would “spray-paint” by blowing paint through hollow bird bones and stencil in some of their work.
- During the Middle Ages, manuscripts were “illuminated” with paint, made up of ground semi-precious stones and egg yolks.
- Plato, the Greek philosopher, is credited with the discovery of being able to mix two different paint colors together to make a third color.
- The color purple is associated with royalty because at one point in time, aristocrats were the only ones who could afford the expensive pigment. During Roman times, it took 4 million crushed mollusk shells to create one pound of purple pigment.
- Certain paint colors are known to have healing properties. For example, the color red can help people who are depressed regain vigor while green helps relieve stress.
- Among the Aztecs, red pigmented paint was thought of as more valuable than gold.
- The Golden Gate Bridge has never changed color since completed in 1937. The color is International Orange.
- Black paint signifies life and yellow paint signifies death in many Native American tribes.
- Michelangelo created his famous painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in only 4 years in the 1500s, but it took 20 years to restore it in the late 1900s.
- Sir Issac Newton developed the color wheel in 1706; therefore, it is older than the U.S.
- Sherwin-Williams brought us the first ready-to-use paint in 1866. Previously, paint had to be mixed manually using various materials to include – milk, olive oil, eggs, lime and other earth pigments, linseed oil, and many more.
- Sherwin-Williams also invented the re-sealable tin can.
- The meaning of red doors has changed through history as well as through various cultures. In the early days of the U.S., a red door was a sign that a house was a safe spot to stop for the evening/ to rest from a long day’s travel. During the Civil War, a red door meant that the house was a safe home for slaves trying to escape and go North in the Underground Railroad. In Scotland, a red door means a home is mortgage-free. In China, a red door symbolizes good luck.
- According to the EPA, the U.S. uses about 1.57 billion gallons of paint each year.
