Like seriously, this is the most shocking part to me still.
127 hours of light exposure
5 days of sunlight
and this vibrant rich yellow is turned into a brownish muddy faded grey. Like, holy fucking shit!!!!!
Perhaps the best known "longterm" recording medium today is Archival Vellum -- that is, animal skin, prepared in a way that removes acids from it. The best archival vellum parchment can last 1000 years at *least*, assuming it's kept dry and free from moisture.
This is actually one of the reasons why, since the 1800s articles of British Law have been printed on Archival Vellum and stored in a vault somewhere.
The Magna Carta, signed 800 years ago, is still readable. The book you just bought off Amazon won't be in about 50 years.
(cont)
Unfortunately, there's not much interest in this in the industry outside of some dedicated nerds. You can see in this one test by a relative of mine, the Aureolin literally changes colour from being yellow to being brown! They were hung outside in sunlight for only 5 days!
(cont)
A "Blue Wool Scale" is a test where pigments are put on paper, and half of it is covered. It's then exposed to light after a certain amount of time. Notice how it has a section on it saying 2 days! The next image is a test, notice how some blues become purple or yellow or disappear! (cont)
Different pigments themselves have different light-fastness, which is a measure of how long it takes it to vanish under UV light. If you look at old paintings, sometimes you will see grey or missing colours. This is because the paint literally faded from the page.
In this painting by Jacob Van Es from 1630, you can see not only how the paints have faded over the last 400 years, but also the accumulated grime over the background. Notice the grapes look kinda uniformly yellowy along with the plums and pears, but the strawberries are vibrant.
It's possible that those blackberries were perhaps bluer at one point, or much more vivid and bright. That those grapes were a vivid bright green. But the yellows and reds are the least lightfast colours in the painting, so they have stayed strong these 400 years!
(cont)
Formerly @catgirl.science
v24.0.0 : Wales, UK : Trans : Lesbian : Pan : Plural : Polyam : Disabled : Hacker : Archivist : Learner : little gay girl :))))
Professionally, I work for https://gfsc.studio, and thereby indirectly for cool charities in the UK!!!!
Independently, I do a lot of things and forget to toot about them!!! Mostly computer
touching but also some music, and kissing of cuties
Headmates: Nova, Aster, Rebecca, Alexandria (is a subsystem)
I 💖 my partners. Can display polycule graph on request.