Secret Materials

Recently, the New York Times had a piece on terrorists trying to find something called red mercury.

‘In previous generations,

old women wore it in a

necklace to keep the devil’s

eye away,’ one smuggler said.

And in Game of Thrones, we see wildfire, a substance based on Greek fire, a legendary Byzantine weapon.

‘Piss on wildfire and your cock burns off’

All of this is akin to aurum potabile--the never-found philosopher's stone.

Krakatoa and Color in Painting

The orange skies above Europe from the eruption of Krakatoa most famously influenced Edvard Munch's The Scream:

Munch used the stratified azure-free skies as a metaphor for angst:

Munch, Angst

Almost like a scribble nimbus from Peanuts comics.

See more Krakatoa Sunsets from The Public Domain Review. Here's a taste:

Pyrotechnics in art

More on Picturing Pyrotechnics from The Public Domain Review