Lilia Felix and Arturo León at the National School for Conservation, Restoration, and Museography in Mexico City have worked with these
Fig. 10. Lilia Félix and Arturo León from ENCRyM, making a red colorant
from cochineal.
materials for over twenty years (fig. 10).14 Together, we were able to recon-
struct the techniques of pigment production using most of the materials
mentioned by the painters of the Florentine Codex.15 These experiments
showed that in order to make these colors bright and stable, the crafts- men had to follow strict procedures, as all of these dyes are fairly sensitive to changes in pH and are not so easily stabilized. For instance, to make reds out of cochineal (nocheztli in Náhuatl, grana fina in Spanish), the
insects have to be boiled for more than an hour (fig. 11).16 The colorant is
extracted and dried and made into tortillas, after which it has to be stabi- lized with orchid gum (tzacutli in Náhuatl), and then dissolved in either a basic or an acidic medium in order to obtain a blood red or orange-
red.17 The Spanish translation by Sahagún states that the grana fina was
such a precious colorant that it was exported throughout the world to regions as far away as China and Turkey. This red colorant was called tlaquauac tlapalli in Náhuatl, and it was sold in the market, ready to be used in the shape of a tablet called a panecillo in Spanish and tlatlaxcalolli
in Náhuatl.18
A brilliant red color called huitzquiahuitl, made using brazilwood chips, was used by the Nahua painters in the Florentine Codex. The chips had to be fermented in water for years. The Nahua also used this colorant to produce black ink for writing, when mixed with an iron-
based clay.19 To produce blue from indigo, they needed another complex
14. The project of reconstructing the painting technique was possible thanks to Lilia Félix, Arturo León, and Lorena Román at the National School for Conservation, Restoration, and Museography (ENCRyM) in Mexico City. The research is an ongoing venture, and many more colors mentioned in the Florentine Codex still need to be made.
15. The codex’s brief but highly significant treatise on how to make the colors to paint starts at fol. 368r, with the grana or nocheztli, and ends in fol. 373r.
16. Coccus cacti and Dactylopius coccus. The female insects of these species produce the colorant.
17. See Baglioni et al., “On the Nature of the Pigments …,” in this volume. The tzacutli, or orchid gum, as a binder is mentioned in the Florentine Codex, MS. Med. Pal. 220, book 11, fol. 372v. Caroluza González and Lorena Roman have studied the importance of this glue at the National School for Conservation, Restoration, and Museography, where they have found it has a high quality as a conservation material for paper and cloth (ENCRyM, 2005–2008). Another study of it has been carried out by Berdan, “Technology of Ancient Meso- american Mosaics.”
18. Florentine Codex, Ms. Med. Pal. 220, Book 11, fol. 368v. 19. Ibid., fol. 370r.
process (fig. 12).20 The leaves were soaked in water for a day. The green liquid obtained was then poured into another bowl and agitated until it became thick and blue. The blue paste was boiled for an hour, resulting in a solid blue. Then these solid particles had to become soluble again so they could serve as pigments, the whole process taking at least a year. The Spanish text summarizes all this complex process as follows:
There is a plant in these lands that is called xiuhquihuitl; they grind it to extract its juice, and then pour it into clay vases so that it becomes solid.
20. The indigo plant that grows in the American continent is Indigofera suffruticosa, while the indigo plant that was used in Europe but came from the Middle East is Indigofera tinctoria.
Fig. 11. The manufacturing of organic red from cochineal. Notice the
artist using this pigment. Florentine Codex, book 11, fol. 368v.
With this color they dye blues [that are] dark and resplendent. It is a very
precious color.21
21. Florentine Codex, MS. Med. Pal., book 11, fol. 371r. “Hay una hierba en estas tier- ras que se llama xiuhquihuitl; majan esta hierba y esprímenla el zumo y échanlo en unos vasos. Allí se seca o se quaja; con este color se tiñe lo azul oscuro y resplandeciente. Es color preciado.” The English translation above is mine.
Fig. 12. The production of blue from indigo. Notice that the artist using
In the Náhuatl texts, indigo was called tlacehuilli. Only the green color of the water of the first extraction of indigo was mentioned there,
but the process of manufacturing the color was the same.22
Francisco Hernández (1515–1587), the naturalist whom Phillip II sent to New Spain, described the process of making blue pigment from indigo in detail: the leaves were soaked in very clean water and macerated; then the liquid was poured into ollas, or pots, until the sediments became solid. Hernández stated that the blue colorant was called mohuitli or
tlacehuilli.23
In our team’s experiments in producing the yellow from zacatlaxcalli, we found out that the weed had to be mashed and made into tortillas
because it was extremely sticky.24 Yellow hues could only be acquired by
mixing the dye with an acidic solution. Otherwise, different shades of
22. Tlacehuilli means something that has become cold—“cosa enfriada” in Spanish. López Luján, Chiari, and López Austin, “Línea y color en Tenochtitlan,” p. 23.
23. Hernández, Obras completas, vol. 3, pp. 112–113.
24. Zacatlaxcalli is a weed called dodder in English and classified as Cuscuta tinctoria.
Fig. 13. The production of yellow and brown from zacatlaxcalli. Notice
the artist employing the pigment. Florentine Codex, book 11, fol. 369v. brown would result (fig. 13). Hernández described how painters used this
color in the shape of tortillas made by macerating the weed in water and mixing the yellow liquid with alum and nitro (nitre, or saltpeter). The pigment from this procedure, according to Hernández, was a “reddish
yellow.”25
Practical experience in making these colors revealed two important technical facts: first, one can easily understand why the painters were not able to produce more colorants when the great epidemic hit Mexico City in 1576 and their pigments ran out while painting the last sections of book 11. The painting technique was rich, complex, and fascinating, but it depended on the existence of a functioning social, economic, and ecological system. Second, these organic dyes were surely used not only for their chromatic quality, but must have had an intrinsic value and significance. As Berenice Alcántara has accurately described in her
work,26 the Nahua regarded flowers as the crystallization of powerful,
25. Hernández, Historia de las Plantas, vol. 2, p. 394.
26. Alcántara, “In Neppapan Xochitl: The Power of Flowers in the Works of Sahagún,” in this volume.
Fig. 14. The red pigment (tlahuitl in Náhuatl), identified in our study as
the mineral hematite, is shown as being obtained from a cave, while the white tizatl, identified as gypsum, is taken from the bottom of a lake. Both locations are related to the Nahua underworld. Florentine Codex, book 11, fol. 372r.
divine entities related to the upper world. They conceived of the universe as a living entity, always regenerating itself by means of the interactions of two opposing forces: that of the sky, where the sun dwelled; and that of the watery, dark underworld in the entrails of the earth, where the moon,
the stars, and the seashells lived.27 Thus, if colors were made from flowers,
those colors had the creative force of the upper world. The images, then, were made to exist by the power of those specific colors, those tlapalli, which had both a living force and a chromatic value.