cadmium red

American  

noun

1. a pigment used in painting, consisting of the sulfide and the selinide of cadmium, characterized by its strong red or reddish color, excellent film-forming properties, and slow drying rate.

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Etymology

Origin of cadmium red

First recorded in 1885–90

Example Sentences

These strange, clunky pictures, in a palette dominated by cadmium red, also included bare lightbulbs, the soles of shoes, buildings and bricks.

From Washington Post • Sep. 3, 2020

As painter Ed Ruscha writes in the catalog for the exhibition at LACMA, Purifoy applied "burned-out wood" the way "a painter might use cadmium red."

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 13, 2015

The others, which he blended at will into a rainbow of subtle hues, were lead white, cadmium red and yellow, emerald green, ultramarine blue "and, very very seldom, a little black."

From Time Magazine Archive

P.S.—Of course I only use cadmium red when I want a very deep orange in drapery or sky—nothing could replace it.

From The Life, Letters and Work of Frederic Leighton Volume II by Barrington, Mrs. Russell

Before the introduction of cadmium red, this and the following pigment were the best and only unexceptionable orange-reds known.

From Field's Chromatography or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists by Salter, Thomas