Painters' primary colours have a messy history rooted in materials. About 100,000 years ago people at Blombos Cave in South Africa ground red ochre into powder and mixed it with fat. For centuries the brightest red came from red lead and from vermilion, a manufactured form of cinnabar made by heating mercury and sulphur, a process described by the monk Theophilus around 1122. Crimson and kermes came from insects, and lakes fixed plant and insect dyes onto white particles to make paint. Cadmium red only became widely available around 1910, after cadmium was discovered in 1817.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.