Kraplak red: description, application and photo

Kraplak - from German krapplack (kraplak, krap lacquer) - paint is intensely red in color, but darker than carmine. Like the pigment mentioned above, as well as cormorant and purple, it is a red organic dye and has been used since ancient Egypt.

The color of kraplak red dark (and sometimes light) in Russia is called kumach. This is the color of blood, the color of the flag of the first country of the Soviets - the USSR.

Until the mid-19th century, kraplak was produced only from the roots of plants of the madder family (madder, R. tinctorum and other species), processed by various methods and was widely used to obtain artistic paints, pigments for fabrics, carpets, etc., was also used in medicine. Depending on the processing method of plant material, paint was obtained in bright shades of purple, bright red, and less commonly used: orange, canary yellow and other colors.

Kraplaki from organic raw materials were replaced by synthetic analogues after obtaining the possibility of synthesizing organic dyes. This reduced the cost and simplified the process of obtaining them, but still obtaining coloring pigments is a complex and expensive production.

Krapplak bottle

Natural red paint from plants

The brightest paints used by artists of all time were obtained from natural materials: purple - from snails, carmine - from cobworms, cochineal, cinnabar - from the red mineral mercury, indigo and kraplak - from plants, etc. The methods for producing paints were quite complicated , from several kilograms of raw materials received only grams of coloring pigment. It was also difficult to obtain the raw materials considered by us, red kraplak was especially valued.

Natural organic red dyes are still, despite a rather decent cost, used in cosmetics and the food industry, because, unlike synthetic analogues, they are more resistant to light and less harmful. They are still used traditionally, for example, in carpet weaving of the East. Dyed with natural dyes, including red speck, carpets are very much appreciated, because they retain the brightness and saturation of tones for centuries.

krapplak in the interior

Red paint for oil painting and watercolor

In the Middle Ages, red kraplak was necessary for performing artwork when working on murals. It was used to work on oil and tempera paintings of walls, sails and shades of cathedrals, usually as an additional shade of red with carmine and purple. He gave artists the opportunity to expand the red color range of the palette.

Then kraplak was one of the few bright red pigments. They actively used the overlay over cinnabar to remove the dullness of this paint, enhance the color and give depth and sonicity to the red color through glaze.

In addition, Kraplak hardened the surface of the picture. With his help, the clothes of noble people were painted, draperies, as in the portrait of Phillip IV Velazquez.

El Greco very often used kraplak, putting it on top of lighter colors, as, for example, was done in the painting "Christ expelling merchants from the temple."

Vermeer set off his cheeks and lips, for example, at the famous “Girl with a Pearl Earring”. With a mixture of kraplak with black paint, he made sketches and underpainings of paintings, painted darkened areas of the skin.

Professional tempera, oil and watercolor sets still necessarily include red kraplak paint in their composition, along with carmine.

Krapplak smears

Getting kraplak natural

Suitable plants for paint are only three of more than 50 species of the madder family. They are shrubs or small shrubs with paniculate or racemose inflorescences.

To obtain kraplak use the underground parts of the plant. The pigment of the paint is quite difficult and long. Initially, the raw materials are dried in small piles. After a few days, it is collected and further dried. Then it is stripped from the top layer, crushed and ground to powder. And such types of madder, as Asian, also need to be fermented for about a year and only then treated with chemicals of a certain composition. Sometimes dried raw materials are steamed with water, then dried, and the powder is precipitated with alkali on alum or substrates from certain grades of clay. The tin mordant of the raw material gave a fiery red color, with alumina (containing aluminum compounds) - bright red and pink.

krapplak chemical process

Obtaining synthetic substitutes

Kraplak synthetic was first prepared in 1868 from aluminum-calcium varnish - alizarin.

Today, speckles are red, both light and dark - popular synthetic paints. They are massively prepared on the basis of anthraquinone pigments, which are complex, intensely colored compounds, the color of which may be different depending on the composition of the compounds used (oxyantraquinone and various precipitants).

The characteristic features of art paints

The characteristic features of kraplaks are as follows:

  • these are strongly glaze paints, because they are transparent or translucent and easily give unusual light effects of glaze;
  • pasty application of kraplaks does not make sense because of their transparency and fluidity;
  • have a great hiding power, that is, with uniform application they are able to overlap the color of the surface on which they were applied;
  • Kraplaki belong to slowly drying paints;
  • the introduction of varnishes or densified oil No. 1 or No. 2 into them further increases their brightness.

Why you can not mix different colors with each other

Krapplak on the palette

Paints are organic substances of a rather complex chemical composition. When mixing paints, chemical reactions occur, as in their production, some chemicals pass into others. As the composition changes, the color of the paints also changes. So that the work of paints does not lose color (and sometimes structure, because the composition of the substrate is also a chemical compound), does not darken and does not turn whitish immediately when mixing paints or over time, it is necessary to know the compatibility of individual paints. You can mix only clearly defined colors, then the work will delight the viewer for a long time with the freshness of its bright saturated colors.

Kraplak compatibility with other paints

There are many paint compatibility tables on the Internet. However, speckles are very moody in this regard. They do not like to mix with other paints, spoiling the color: other shades turn brown, gray or lighten.

krapplak eskens

Mixing kraplak with whitewash can be considered very unsuccessful: chrome, manganese or lead. A mixture of it with ultramarine and cobalt paints is also undesirable. Especially they should not be mixed with cobalt in a small ratio. So violet kraplak gives a brightening, whitish tone, if mixed with cobalt.

Unsuccessful and mixing paint manganese blue with speckles: we get an unpleasant dirty blue color. In a mixture with manganese cadmium, the composition reveals a blue pigment of manganese paint. Kraplak unpleasantly changes its tone when mixed with chromium oxide. Volkonskoit and green earth mixed with this paint can cause cracking, especially with thick application.

If you mix kraplaki with ultramarine, then the tone of the colors becomes brown. Earthy paints are also not recommended to be mixed with them. It is especially not recommended to add other paints in small proportions to the speckles.

Light fastness

krapplak light

Kraplaki belong to medium-light-resistant paints. But this is an average figure, because, depending on the method of production, they can be significantly more lightfast.

However, red kraplak is durable (it is darker) does not lose brightness for a very long time, for which artists appreciate.

Light fastness is one of the main requirements for paints and for watercolors. And “Kraplak is red light” from the set of watercolor paints “Leningrad” according to gamut No. 313 - one of the most light-resistant paints - *** (three stars).


All Articles