John Goffe Rand, Pigs’ Bladders, Paint Tubes and Impressionism

In 1841, a little-known American portraitist living in London invented a small, artists’ aid that would have a significant impact on art. While Monet, Renoir and Degas are commonly linked to impressionism, John Goffe Rand’s collapsible paint tube influenced the making of art at the time by providing a convenient way to store paint.¹

Before 1841, the artist would prepare the paint by buying ground pigment from a merchant and mixing it with oil.² The colours were then typically stored in pigs’ bladders, which the artist would later pierce to squeeze out the required amount. This method of storage was far from ideal, as the bladders tended to burst easily, were permeable, and once pierced could only be resealed with a puncture repair kit.³

The paint tube, made with inert tin so as not to react with the paint⁴, proved more convenient; more artists left their studios to work closer to their subjects. This change in setting enabled artists to capture the nuances of their environment in different light and weather, characteristic of the momentary paintings of the impressionists.⁵ The invention also enabled merchants to readily distribute the variety of new colours that were then available (thanks to the advancement of chemistry in the early 1800s), greatly enhancing the impressionist palette.⁶

Rand’s seemingly insignificant invention was critical in helping the impressionists execute their paintings with greater precision. Renoir’s son quotes his father as saying

Paints in tubes, being easy to carry , allowed us to work from nature, and nature alone. Without colors in tubes, there would be no Cézanne, no Monet, no Pissaro, and no Impressionism.”⁷