A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1083 entries
umber
Umber is an earth pigment colored by iron oxide with a substantial amount of manganese, which is what separates it from ochre and sienna and gives it a cooler, darker, greener brown. Raw umber is a dull grayish brown; roasted, it becomes burnt umber, a deep warm chocolate. It dries fast, it is completely permanent, and it has been in continuous use since prehistory.
Etymology
Two accounts compete and neither has been settled. One takes the name from Umbria, the region of central Italy where the best earth was dug, which fits the pattern of pigments named for their source alongside sienna. The other takes it from the Latin for shadow, the same word as umbra, on the grounds that umber is the standard shadow color.
Notes
It is the darkest of the earth pigments and it is the one that makes the others work, since a landscape painted in ochre and sienna needs umber for the shadows. Cyprus was the other great source and Cyprus umber is still sold separately. The manganese is also why it dries faster than other earths, which made it the standard underpainting color for centuries.