Viridian Green (PG18) is a semi-transparent green pigment with a distinctive blue undertone. It can be found in the paintings of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, and continues to be a popular pigment today. The story of Viridian is best understood in the context of the green pigments that were available at the time it was discovered.
At the beginning of the 19th Century, one of the most commonly used green pigments was Emerald Green (also known as Paris Green). Its high opacity and vibrant hue made it a popular artist pigment, but it was incredibly poisonous due to its arsenic content. Cheap to produce, Emerald Green was used as a colourant for wallpaper, clothes, and home furnishings. When the material degraded in damp conditions, it released highly toxic arsine gas. This led to many cases of arsenic poisoning, sometimes with deadly consequences.
Chromium Oxide Green was first produced in 1798, but it lacked the vibrancy of Emerald Green and wasn’t immediately popular. When Viridian was created in 1836 by French colourmaker Pannetier, it was noted for its lively character and caught the interest of artists. Emerald Green had a tendency to go black when mixed with pigments that contain sulphides, like Cadmium Yellow and Ultramarine Blue, but Viridian was stable, lightfast, and had the intensity of colour that artists were looking for.
Viridian wasn’t created to replace Emerald Green (Emerald Green artist paints continued to be available until the 20th Century), however, Viridian gradually replaced it in commercial and industrial applications. A cheaper method of producing Viridian was patented by Guignet in 1859, making it more accessible. It became a popular colour in the palette of Impressionists. Analysis of this painting by Claude Monet shows that Viridian has been used throughout:

Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877)
Claude Monet (1840–1926)
Oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL.
Viridian Green’s characteristics
A single pigment green like Viridian makes a great addition to a palette. It is relatively dark-valued when used straight from the tube, and can be used to make some dark mixtures. Viridian’s blue hue is revealed in glazes and in tints with white, where it makes a sky-blue.
The following mixtures have been made using watercolour. The column on the right is neat watercolour, with pure Viridian at the top, the mixing colour at the bottom, and varying mixes of the two in between. The remaining columns to the left of this show what happens to each colour mix when white gouache is added to it in increments, from right to left.

Viridian and Pyrrole Red
Viridan and Pyrrole Red can create black when used neat, which when mixed with small quantities of white gouache creates subtle greys. A similar effect could be achieved with Cadmium Red instead of Pyrrole Red. For very deep blacks, Phthalo Green might be more efficient than Viridian because it is darker in value.

Viridian and Pyrrole Orange.
With orange being complementary to blue, Pyrrole Orange neutralises Viridian’s blue-ness to make earthy greens and terracotta browns.

Viridian and Raw Sienna
Viridian can be persuaded to make some gentle, earthy mixtures which could be useful in a landscape palette. A green with a higher tinting strength, like Phthalo Green, could easily overwhelm a moderately tinting earth pigment.
I was expecting this mixture to make neutral greys, but instead it creates some surprising violets! These combinations would be at home in a botanical palette.
Some Viridian paints are made using Phthalo Green (PG7), or a mixture of Viridian and Phthalo Green, so it is worth checking the pigment index numbers.
While it is lower in tinting strength than the more modern Phthalo Green, Viridian is a characterful pigment which has many uses in an artist palette. Let us know how you use Viridian in your palette by leaving a comment below.
Product ranges used for this article:
- Jackson’s Artist Watercolour
- Schmincke Horadam Watercolour
- Roman Szmal Aquarius Watercolour
- Jackson’s Artist Oil Paint
These informations are fabulous. I’ve learned
so much from reading them. Please
continue, as they increase my knowledge
and understanding of watercolors.
Thank you!
So glad you’ve found them interesting!
I find that a mixture of viridian with
alizaran crimson used with plenty of
water, makes a lovely lively grey for
beach stones and pebbles
That’s one of my favourite combinations as well, thanks for your comment Marion!
Yes, and lovely darks (instead of my usual ultramarine/burnt umber).
Viridian PG18 is one of my most used
watercolor paints, I’m particularly fond of
how well the M. Graham version re-wets.
The granulation can create lovely color
separating mixtures. Those purple
mixtures are so beautiful with Magenta
(Quin Purple) PR122 😀 Great post!
I was so surprised by the mixtures with Quinacridone Purple, I wasn’t expecting such lovely violets. Thank you for your comment!
This article is so very interesting, it’s
reignited my thoughts on experimenting with
paint and is great to know more of the
background to this colour. Please continue
with other pigments. I use viridian with perm
aliz crimson to get a great neutral tint.
I will do, thank you so much Betty!
I use viridian mostly for foliage. Almost
everytime first add yellow ochre to mix an
organic muted green. Adding cad lemon and
white makes lawn in sunlight. Quin
magentas/violets or alizarin equivalents
mute the mixtures successfully. Richard
Schmid is a master of viridian. He adds trans
oxide red to make spectacular sap greens.
Those mixtures all sound wonderful, thank you Han
This is interesting. I always wondered why
Winsor & Newton named their Viridian “Vert
de Guignet” in French. Thank you for the
explanation 🙂
No problem, thank you for your comment!
Thinking about Viridian I have seen some great Veronese
paintings and always wondered what color he may have
used back in Renaissance times… just a thought
Thanks for your interesting question. From what I understand about Veronese, he would have used Verdigris (a green copper pigment) and various yellows like lead-tin yellow and yellow ochre to mix his greens.
I love mixing viridian with quin
gold. Well with everything really.
I haven’t tried it with Quinacridone Gold, I’ll definitely give that a go!
I I like mixing Viridian with Alizarin Crimson, which produces a
lovely transparent cool grey.
Me too, and they can make a beautiful near-black as well.
I found this article SO interesting! Thank
you – I am fascinated by the history of
traditional earth pigments, and the
potential of the new chemical colours.
I find that Viridian and Rose Madder
make a wonderful greeny-grey, very
useful for stormy seas!
I’ll definitely try the Viridian and Rose Madder combination, thank you!
Thanks Evie – you’ve made a fabulous
and rich resource here, thank you.
One of my favourite combinations
(that can reveal the joys of palette-
mixing to students) is to be able to
mix a blue! Improbable but not
impossible, with Viridian and Magenta
.. in oils it is possible to mix a good
‘black’ from these two, then to
gradually add white until you reach a
serviceable and mysterious magic
blue.
Thanks so much for your comment, that sounds amazing!
Thank you for a well researched and
brilliantly written article. I’m especially
grateful for the colour charts and
insightful tips. A great deal of effort
obviously went into the column and
you’ve created an excellent resource!
Thank you.
Thank you, colour charts are always so much fun to make
Very useful! Thank you
Thank you Zohar!
As an obsessed but amateur artist, this
article has really opened my eyes to the
possibilities of mixing colours with
Viridian, that I hadn’t even dreamt off.
I’ve got tubes of the colour that I hardly
use.
It has also made me aware of the
enormous possibilities of being more
adventurous with trying other colour
combinations.
A truly inspirational article.
Many thanks.
Thank you Trevor, I’m so glad to hear it. Happy painting!
I loved reading about Viridian and find it
amazing as to how many shades can be
made. I see hues I would not think to
use. This is so inspiring. Thank you
No problem Karen, thanks for your lovely comment
I love using Viridian with Permanent rose to
make the most beautiful soft grey, which can
then be used on white flowers. It has to be
used very dilute, but the tone can be
increased with additional washes. This grey
can also then be coloured by the addition of
other hues. It is an essential colour in my
paintbox as a botanical artist.
I discovered Viridian and Permanent Rose the other day, it’s a beautiful combination. Thank you for your comment!
Another really excellent and informative article. Thanks very much
iindeed.
Thank you Tricia!
A very interesting article. I have always preferred viridian PG18 to Pthalo green, but it appears to be becoming quite scarce even in artist quality ranges, and Daler Rowney now use a hue. Why is this?
Hi Colin, I had a chat with a member of our technical team who says that the pigment itself is not becoming more difficult to get hold of. But because it is such an expensive pigment, it’s likely that some ranges use a hue in order to keep the price of the paint down for the customer. You can still find genuine Viridian in many ranges and it looks like it isn’t going anywhere!
Thank you Evie for checking things out and finding the answer to my question. I wondered if cost was the factor. I always enjoy reading these excellent articles.
No problem Colin!
Thank you for your article, it was very
exciting to see the range of colours that
can be mixed using viridian green. I am
eager to get out paints to experiment
myself.
So glad to hear it, happy painting!
Calligraphers who use gouache tend to steer
clear of Viridian because it is too grainy in
the pen. Do you know whether it has been
refined lately? Thanks.
Hi Jane, yes I can imagine why Viridian would be difficult to use in a pen. Unfortunately it is a characteristically grainy pigment, but Phthalo Green would be be a good alternative!
Wonderful article, learned a lot, as a beginner, the charts on mixing colours was really helpful and inspiring. Thanks so much.
Thanks for your lovely comment Christine, I’m glad to hear it!
A colour I use in abundance in my work.
Thanks for a very interesting article: I
have often ignored viridian because I
find it such an ‘unnatural’ colour. I do
love it mixed with Prussian blue to make
rich, deep sea colours. I will definitely
experiment more with mixing – I enjoyed
reading all the previous comments and
their mixing ideas.
I used to avoid Viridian for the same reason, but I use it much more now and everyone’s suggestions are very inspiring!
I have both veridian and pthalo
green on my palette. I keep the
veridian for those paintings where
I don’t want to get into trouble! It
is so much gentler than pthalo. I
almost never use either straight
out of the tube, but rather as a
base for either blue or yellow
greens, to neutralize other colors,
and sometimes for violets.
Thank you for this really interesting article 🙂
I’m researching what paints were used in the
past for a story and this definitely helped,
especially the dangerous side effects of
Emerald Green.