How did neon colors come about?

Factual Questions
1

Really-
I was thinking back to the really old times, and what kind of colors were available to early painters- say, the Renaissance.
I know they had blue and yellow ochre and red and charcoal and white, but how did people come to manufacture acrylic paint shades such as phalo-blue or acra violet?
More specifically, how did they first make flourscent colors?
A second related question-
anyone know about when the highlighter was invented?

2

Just a WAG but I think you make fluorescent colors by adding fluorescent minerals to regular colors. IIRC, the history of pigments has been driven by discovering new materials that made new colors and/or properties available. The fluorescent additives for modern colors are probably synthetic, but I’m already way past knowing what I’m talking about.

As far as highlighters, my own personal experience is that I never saw them in high school but I remember using one as a freshman in college. That was in 1972 and they were readily available then, so I presume they were invented a few years earlier. Say 1965?

3

I believe the pigment is flourite, CaF[sub]2[/sub]. It absorbs utraviolet light and emmits visible light. It occurs in light green, blue, yellow, brown, and colorless forms.

4

Just a nit: I’m sure we all realize that neon has nothing to do with flourescent colors. Neon being a noble gas which glows red-orange when exited by electricity, and green “neon” lights are, UIM, filled with argon etc.

5

Minor nit: Argon glows pinkish or purpulish, not green-- I’m not sure what the gas used for green light tubes would be.
Slightly less minor nit: What we think of as fluorescent colors often have nothing to do with actual fluorescence: A thing can be fluorescent and look perfectly normal under visible light, and vice-versa. I suspect that the Renaissance painters could have mixed up the vivid shades that we commonly call “fluorescent”, but they were creating depictions of actual things, few of which are those colors, so they didn’t.

6

And don’t forget-- many of their pigments have faded, or been obscured by smoke and grime, in the last few centuries since they were applied.

7

I guess that dashes my hopes of finding a truly psychadelic Da Vinci. :slight_smile: Hey, cool, man. La Gioconida is breathing! Cool! Hey, check out this fresco with a black candle. Cool! (I’ve been up way too late. :smiley: )