"'Emerald' or 'Paris' green was once a highly popular pigment among painters, but the chemistry behind its slow decay over time has been unclear."
"Artists from Camille Pissarro to Edvard Munch loved the vivid shades of 'emerald' or 'Paris' green in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century - but paintings containing it have since distinctly lost their lustre."
"Now researchers understand why."
Paris green (emerald green) is a copper–arsenic pigment extensively used by late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century painters. The pigment undergoes slow chemical transformations over decades that diminish its vivid green color and reduce surface lustre. Reactions involving the pigment's copper and arsenic components and environmental agents produce new compounds that do not reproduce the original green chromophore. Analytical techniques have identified the transformation pathway and the resulting degradation products. Improved understanding of the chemistry enables more informed conservation approaches to stabilize affected paintings and guide preservation decisions.
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