Marmotinto
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marmotinto is the art of creating pictures using coloured sand or marble dust.
Originating in Europe, It was was fleetingly popular in England following a 1783 dinner party given by George III[1] at Windsor Castle who was taken with a display arranged under glass at his dinner table by a Bavarian named Benjamin Zobel[2], a friend of George Morland, a painter prominent in the "Isle of Wight School" . It became popular in Victorian times as the tourist industry began and parts of the Isle of Wight where such sand was available were briefly developed as a tourist destination for steamers. There are fine examples of marmotinto at Osborne House.
Although marmotinto with marble and other coloured dust was known across England and on the continent, beyond its initial fashionable period marmotinto with coloured sand is an art form now possibly unique to the Isle of Wight - where it is nevertheless unusual - due to the availability of the raw materials and to the inherent limitations of the art form.
