"Napoleonic Russian Artillery Color" Topic

I almost hate to pull this old chestnut out of retirement, but I'm hoping to find a more definite answer than "dark green." :-)

The Russian material I've got seems to either reproduce directly or be based on colored Viskovatov plates. There, the color of the carriages, limbers, etc. seems to vary between VMC 808 Blue Green and VMC 838 Emerald. I'm perfectly willing to paint them in this scheme, but it seems odd to me to have jade woodwork when everyone is using pretty basic, primary shades.

The carriages at the artillery museum had been some kind of green at some point--maybe a dark olive?

The reenactors are all over the place, but most seem to be a medium green.

My first guess would have been a dark olive, but that would make it too similar to the French, and I'm guessing they wanted to differentiate? I don't know when they switched over from the 18th c. red.

Next guess would be something like VMC 975 Military Green, which would be dark, but still on the bluish side of green?

Thanks!
jeff

Many (not all) sources call the shade 'apple green'

FWIW this is early 19th C apple green (not Russian though) link

YMMV

Here's the problems with your question:

1. Green is a fairly unstable color chemically in most cases, not holding to one hue very long, regardless of the mix--that 'apple green' chair for instance, would not be the original hue. Like paintings, the colors lighten or darken over time and sun exposure. THis is why you don't see the armies in sunnier climes [compared to Russia] going for Green as the coat color.

2. While the Russian army had a recipe for the color, who mixed it with what could create a lot of variety.

3. Black was often used to 'green' out a beige color, creating what looked like a dark olive green.

So, bottom line. If you want to be historically accurate, have the carriages a mix of green variations… depending on the paint mix and length of time in the sun.

;-j It is one of the reasons you are having trouble finding out what the 'true' color is…

The Scotsman

Apple green, not dark green. Like unripe apples.

Try Testors Model Master Warsaw Pact Gray-green. Do not (like a guy I once gamed with) use "Candy Apple Green".

Thanks all for the contributions!

Scotsman, I don't disagree a bit with what you're saying. I pulled out Bondarchuk's W&P again and went through the battle sequences. I'm cautious about using it for color refs because the DVD print I have looks like it was lifted directly from VHS, but it was useful nonetheless.

The carriages were so dusty and worn (as portrayed in the Tushin sequence in the film) that about all you could tell is that they were an olive-ish green of some kind. :-) Later at Borodino there's a shot of a carriage that's a dark green, but they're all mixed a bit. Uniforms as well--I think Tushin's guys at Borodino had five different shades, with the young cadet in yet another, and the older officers in a different, worn state. Brings up the question of whether you want parade ground or campaign, but that's another can'o'worms. :-)

I was actually just looking for a good "starting point," i.e.: what was spec'ed, but for some reason that's not very clear in this case.

As for the question of apple green, I have to agree with nvrsaynvr who notes that all the Russian sources say is "dark green." Hence, my looking at Viskovatov.
TMP link

jeff

TMP link

Been trying to figure that one out myself too.

Jeff:

Well, if you are talking about dark green, it was a blackened beige, which, once exposed to the sun would turn an olive drab or even a dark beige pretty quickly. I have seen the reference to 'apple green' too, but again, colors during the Napoleonic wars don't reference all that well at times. For instance, 'pink' was the name of a red flower and used to describe what we would call a bright red. Even the riders in red coats on fox hunts were called 'pinks.'

Also, uniform and equipment uniformity was as easily achieved as it is now, so it wasn't as strictly enforced.
I think you'll be safe historically with whatever you decide on.

The Scotsman

Russian equipment was dark green.

I believe apple green is simply an error. The only time I've even seen a Russian word for the color, it was French…

NSN

Русская Артиллерия in the Военная История series has it as green and травянисто-зелёний which is not helpful. :-) The illustrations also show the wheels as unpainted, which doesn't jibe with anything I've seen.

All period or other paintings have them too dark to tell.

jeff

I have got to find out un ami's trick for pasting cyrillic without having to switch over to cyrillic encoding.

Dear Mr. Wesevich,

I did not know to look for a message private …. until just a moment ago. But let me answer here, as I have seen others with the same problem.

I do my self have a problem here with Cyrillic words … when they are a little long, one cannot post them without breaking them (falsely) in sections of about 8-10 Cyrillic letters.

For your problem :

The TMP is generated in the ISO-8859-1. It appears to be a Miva Corporation product (perhaps vintage originally about 2002), and likely we are seeing CGI generated pages (maybe Perl, not so likely PHP). These are server scripting languages, so our posts are processed by the TMP server befor they are displayed to us. My only simple sugeestion is to have your keyboard, operating system language and browser all set to ISO-8859-1 encoding and see if that will help. And also, may be to try the Firefox browser if you do not use him.

I did have the great suffering of the different keyboards, the encodings, the character sets, even different laptops -- it was horrid, an horror, horrible. I cannot imagine how it can be for a Chinese or for those who will write in Arabic.

I did then send my "homme de service", the old sergent of my compagnie, to see the computer merchants who did sell the machines to us. I told him that he should not make a great scandal, unless they were in effect attempting to steal from us. But, it is true, one could not use the products as they delivered originally.

He returned with new Apple laptops, USA models – perfectly complete in all details, and with pure legal software. I have always worried that he did hurt some men there, since we did not have to pay any additional amount. But I was so pleased, I confess that I never put the question into my voice.

We have seen no problem with the mix of Latin and Cyrillic (except in the "Subject" lines of some emails), if we use the Thunderbird email client, the Firefox browser and any versions of the Mac OS since 10.2 – all as was advised by the computer merchants.

In the Mac OS language settings, one can select (for instance) French, English and Russian to be pre-loaded. There is a little icon on the top of the screen to select a different keyboards (one can also easily use the "option+ keys on the English keyboard for the French, since they are both Roman). The Roman (with and without accents) and the Cyrillic live very happily together.

Then fir or the Firefox browser, these user settings in about:config that were to us instructed :

preference name // string value
intl.accept_charsets // iso-8859-1,*,utf-8
intl.accept_languages // en-us, fr-fr, ru
intl.charset.detector // universal_charset_detector

For your post :

One could try a little to break the code of the mangled Cyrillic of your post. I am told it is a character set problem – i.e. purely arithmetic. So it is a one-for-one replacement. But one might transliterate the Russian text (I know, it is cretinic, but it will then surely show in Latin lettres in your post)

For you question :

I will do myself the honour to agree with "Steven H Smith" , that in the time of the TSAR Paul, it was the "apple" green and soon after the 1815, it was the darker shade, and more green.
The question must fall, in the end, to knowing how the paint was made.
I will need to try to find more details for you, and I will look, as I see the estimable "Steven H Smith" has also started to look.
But then there is also this : I do have the opinion that the Russian written regulations did stand a little later than the actual using in some situations. There are some nice examples of this in the miracles that are the translations posted by Mr. Mark Conrad. See the "Notes" to his Viskovatov. If I live to be 100 years of age, I will never have his beautiful ability in the combination English+Russian.

- votre ami

As always, thank you very much for the help ami!

jeff

[blush] I missed that my opinion was already cited…

As far as the Viskovatov colored plates go, there seems to be 3 possibilities:

1. The woodwork really was blue-green and no one has commented on that.

2. The colorists used a different ink than the uniform green, and the yellow was quite fugitive.

3. The colorist made an error.

My bet is that it faded, which doesn't help…

I'm dubious of Russkaya Artilleriya Epokhi Napoleonovskikh Voyn – didn't realize the coat was doublebreasted left and right at random…

Where is Steven H Smith's note?

Thanks,
NSN

Hi nvr,

I opened up a discussion on the Napoleon Series forum, and Steven put up a nice response.

jeff

nvrsaynvr,

The Viskovatov plates covering the Nap Wars Period were publish in B&W only in two editions. The first in small folio size starting in the mide 1850's. The second at the begining of the 20th century – this was in the 8vo size. Any coloring to these plates was done by hand. Only a very few sets of the first edition (I have heard the number 10, without a source) were professionally colored for members of the Imperial family. The second edition could be ordered hand colored – the vast majority of colored copies seen in publications are from the 2nd edition.

It should also be pointed out that anyone could take out their watercolors and guaches and paint the B&W plates to their hearts content.

Steve

The 1814 eyewitness report is amazing. Slogans on the carriage? – shades of the Great Patriotic War. Then again, apparently the French practiced this too. The reference to lead colored French woodwork is puzzling but I came across this:

link

Perhaps the French guns were primed only? Anyway the bottom line appears that Russian guns were as bright as French were dull. I must concede that "apple green" may be a likely English description of the color, even though I do not believe it was ever used by the Russians…

NSN

The problems of age remain--green was an unstable color:

1. The guns themselves faded with age, so a dark green could well be an 'apple green' after some time on campaign.

2. Period paintings darken and the varnish turns yellow
watercolors fade, particularly if left out in the light, being hung or displayed.

3. And again, the actual paint color wood vary, depending on the materials availability and quality, the mixer, and the condition of the wood.

The only *real* way of knowing the exact color, how well it covered wood, and weathered would be to find the recipe for the paint [and yes, Virginia, there were several] and then mix and experiment yourself. Even then, the actual quality of the materials might not match after 200 years…

The Hungarians during their 1848 revolution painted their gun carriages with red, white and green stripes. I am sure they are not the only ones to ever do that…

The Scotsman

NSN, I guess I didn't read the eyewitness when Steven first posted it--you're right, it's very interesting. He even gets the angle right on the ammunition cart roofs, so it seems pretty credible.

The other key bit for me was the "Treatise on Carriage Sign and Ornament," which had a great discussion of the colors in use in 1841. Thank you very much for digging that up! Looks like the options for green (cheap enough to paint carriages) were pretty slim in 1812 without chrome yellow or green. Best guess based on that would either be a yellow mixed with Prussian Blue, or more likely, Saxony Green. The latter would have been bright and yellowish (and probably would have varied a lot as well).

The "Lead" color being black added to Lead White (which was apparently a ubiquitous paint mixing base) makes a lot of sense for the "rushed" French carriages. You've already got black around to paint the fittings and there's lots of cheap white…

Scotsman--we were actually asking for the formula on the Napoleon Series board--agree completely that that's the only way of finding out for sure.

So I started this whole thing off painting the carriages Foundry Phlegm Green; thinking it was waay too bright, and then going through the books to find the right color. And now at the end, the Foundry color seems close enough, and I've learned not to trust illustrated books. :-)

I think the colored Viskovatov plates in Smirnov are 20th c, that blue-green on the guns just doesn't seem right. That dating would also jibe with Steven's notes. The Parxaev material appears to suffer from repro problems, sometimes coming out dark green, other times very blue-green. Shrug.

So until someone finds the formula, I'm going to go with a fairly bright apply green (Foundry Phlegm)

Thanks for everyone's help!
jeff

Agree with the Scotsman, although I think it's safe to say it was both distinctly "green" and "bright" in the contemporary context of carriage painting, which might not have been as green or bright as we might currently imagine…

Seems the ACW fanatics have their own issues:
link

NSN

:-) From the carriage and sign painting book, I think the guy in the link is on the right course.

Boris Megorsky took some pics from the Artillery Museum and was nice enough to let me post versions that I've tweaked in photoshop to bring out the color. Processing is pretty crude since I didn't have the originals to work off of, but they seem to get the point across.

Given the slapdash painting, I think a case could be made for them not having been repainted, and a reasonable chance that they're period. The coloring certainly doesn't match up with later 19th or early 20th c. Russian military greens.

My strong guess is that the cheap chrome yellow mixed with cheap prussian blue changed things after 1820 or so. :-)

With the exception of the caisson and the ammo cart models, which appear to be blue mixed with a very little yellow, the others all seem to be in the same area code consistent with the Saxony Green samples I've found. Cleanest example (not surprisingly) is the gun+limber model.

That basic shade matches up with the 1841 paint source, the eyewitness report (certainly brighter than the French) and I think could very reasonably be described as "apple green" in English.

Originals:
link

Tweaked:
link