Curiosity-driven research, curd rice and pickle
You may be familiar with MS Blue, the distinctive shade of blue, named for the legendary Carnatic vocalist M.S. Subbalakshmi, but now “Mas Blue,” is all set to wow the world of art.
“Mas” comes from the initials of Prof. M.A. Subramanian, the material scientist from Madras, the inventor of the vivid blue pigment known to the wider world as YInMn blue, (pronounced yin-min). “Mas,” in Spanish, means more. YInMn blue is bluer compared to any blue pigment humankind has seen before.
Modern computers can display a slew of colors and creative humans have always dreamt up unique hues, but to transform any color, digital or imagined, into something real – something you can paint a wall with or dye a silk sari with, say – you need a pigment, and making a pigment calls for considerable ingenuity (or a very good understanding of chemistry) and, yes, luck. Which is why the invention of the pigment YInMn blue is such a big deal.
“People have been looking for a good, durable blue pigment for a couple of centuries now,” says the academic, who earned his PhD from IIT, Madras. He recalls writing the first chapter of his doctoral thesis sitting on the grounds of Ashtalakshmi Temple in Besant Nagar, close to the institute’s campus. Nearly all his formal education was from places within a few mile-radius of his home in Mambalam in the heart of Chennai. Subramanian moved to Texas for his postdoctoral education. After a distinguished career for over two decades at DuPont, the American chemical giant, where he discovered several functional materials that mostly found use in electronics or energy conversion, he now teaches chemistry in Oregon State University.
In 2009, a graduate student in Subramanian’s research lab, pulverized a mixture of the oxides of yttrium, indium, and manganese, and baked the mixture, to try and create another material for use in high-tech electronics. When they opened the oven door the next day, a dazzling blue powder greeted them. His first thought Subramanian says, was an uncharitable one, “perhaps, the student has made some mistake.” But he recalled colleagues at DuPont saying that blue pigments are hard to make.
So, the researchers repeated the experiment and tested the material. It was non-toxic and stable. Besides, it was resistant to heat and impervious to water, oil, and acids. Further, the material didn’t fade in sunlight and could block solar heat efficiently. So, it was an excellent candidate for use in outdoor paints and industrial coatings. It was not going to be inexpensive, given the components, but it holds great appeal in art too because of its aesthetics.
“The reason YInMn blue is special is because, this blue is very similar to the ultramarine blue used by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel,” says Subramanian. For the “Last Judgement” the sculptor-painter used this very bright and beautiful blue to depict the heavenly skies. During the Middle Ages, the pigment was made from lapis lazuli, literally blue rocks, from the Hindu Kush mountains. It came from beyond the sea – hence the term ultramarine.
Even though ultramarine pigment was expensive – literally worth its weight in gold – Michelangelo insisted on using this pigment for the fresco on the altar wall, The Last Judgement, which was unveiled in 1541. Earlier, when Michelangelo had painted on the ceiling of Sistine Chapel, he had accepted a flat rate for labor and paint. This time someone else was paying and it is human nature to insist on the best possible material, when someone else — especially in this case when someone who is opulently rich — is footing the bill.
These days, Subramanian speaks knowledgably of the work of Renaissance masters but before the invention of YInMn blue, he did not like visiting art museums. In fact, he says he used to grumble when he had to accompany his wife, Rajeevi Subramanian, artist and material scientist, to Louvre (France), Prada (Spain) and Guggenheim (U.S.A) to look at the work of the Old Masters. Now those paintings, especially the ones that feature blue pigments, speak to him. And over the last decade, Subramanian has been an invited speaker at top art museums the world over.
Synthetic blue pigments have a rich and interesting history. The early 18th century saw the discovery of the first modern synthetic blue pigment, Prussian Blue, also known as Berlin Blue. Under the Wave off Kanagawa, one of Hokusai’s Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, has been an icon of Japan since the print was first struck in 1830. Its intense blue comes from Prussian Blue ink – a foreign pigment, imported, probably via China, from Europe.
In the next century, another pigment, Cobalt Blue made its appearance on the scene. Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” for instance, makes stunning use of Cobalt blue. Synthetic ultramarine came soon after – we still use a form of ultramarine to make our white clothes appear whiter – but its manufacture is not green, in that it pollutes the environment. These pigments, which could be manufactured in bulk, were just chemicals, before the old masters painted with them.
In early 2021, YInMn blue became widely available to artists. Soon, someone could paint a modern masterpiece worthy of the pigment. Meanwhile, the Vatican has reportedly considered using YInMn blue in the restoration work at Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo had used ultramarine with abandon for the famous fresco — restoring it is going to be expensive too.
The inventor’s wife, an art aficionado and artist to boot got first dibs on the first synthetic blue pigment to be invented in two centuries. “I believe I was the first to paint with YInMn in watercolor and acrylic,” says Dr. Rajeevi Subramanian. “When Mas first showed me the YInMn pigment I was blown away by its intensity and hue. I really wanted to paint with it.” Even a child, this color had been her favorite. “I’d paint big skies, and large ponds with blue fish, even my mountains were blue,” she says. She painted a Blue Heron with YInMn blue, though in real life its plumage is not so vivid.
For color scientists, YInMn blue is a gift that keeps on giving (an Artist’s Akshayapatra, if you will.) Subramanian’s research team has used its understanding of its crystal structure and chemical makeup to try and create other safe, stable synthetic pigments of various hues. How so? By modifying the ratio of existing elements in YInMn, the researchers could tweak the intensity of blue from light blue to almost black. Next, they tweaked the elements in the material. By adding copper, they got a green pigment; with the addition of iron, they got an orange pigment and so on. (Rajeevi Subramanian made the pigment powders out of YInMn blue and seven different hues of YInMn blue, and several shades of green, orange, yellow, turquoise, and purple all based on YInMn chemistry — to create this marvelous image of this blue heron.)
The holy grail of the pigment industry is a bright, stable red, the kind which a luxury automobile maker like Ferrari can use to paint sport cars. People in the industry say that the inventor of the Ferrari red can hope to retire early. Despite his new fame, and a new-found interest in art, he remains a man of simple tastes, who loves curiosity-driven research, and his nightly meal of curd rice and pickle. Money is not a motivator for Mas. The researcher, who earned his PhD in 1982, still enjoys spending most of his time in the lab. “People say you don’t have a life if you do this, but it’s not true. It’s simply that you enjoy what you do,” says the man whose name is now part of pigment lore thanks to YInMn blue.
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