For their materials, prehistoric painters reached into the earth. Compounds of iron oxides yield muted colors of red, yellow and brown.
Carbon makes a strong black with a bluish tinge, while bone black makes a warmer color.
Until the Industrial Revolution, the majority of colors on artists' palettes were lightfast earth colors, which is why the Old Masters' paintings are mostly brown. During the Industrial Revolution, oil colors were from inorganic pigments that are compounds of minerals, such as cobalt, cadmium, and manganese. These are the mineral colors, and they were developed for every hue on the color wheel. Their intense mass tones complemented earth colors on painters' palettes and replaced paints made from expensive semiprecious stones, fugitive colors, or highly toxic compounds. Impressionism would have been impossible without this full spectrum of pigments packaged for the first time as oil colors in tubes.