old tartans were "simple and earthy"

[figheadair]

The old dyes used before the Industrial Revolution that were derived from plants, sea shells and minerals (... and fixed with urine!) would have given old weavings a very different look. Synthetic chemical dyes have been around so long now that we take those bright, saturated colours like you see in a Royal Stewart or Buchanan tartan for granted as normal and traditional. They've only been around for a couple of hundred years but we've pretty much forgotten what the colours that are derived from nature even look like, anymore. Also, the wide colour palate available to today's weavers didn't exist back then either and the wild and wonderful combinations available now would have been beyond their wildest imaginings.

In your list of natural sources for dyes you missed out animal. Cochineal and Lac, both Shield Insects, were important sources of red in the 18th century. Urine was used in the extraction of indigotin (blue) dyes, principally Indigo and Woad, it is not a mordant used for fixing dyes.

Yes, artificial dyes can be bright; equally, they can be dull as in the Reproduction range. It is completely incorrect to say that the wide colour palate available to today's weavers didn't exist back then either and the wild and wonderful combinations available now would have been beyond their wildest imaginings. Almost every colour and shade, or ones very similar, were available from traditional natural dyes as this inexhaustive range shows.



There are original examples discussed in these papers An Unnamed late 18thCentury Fancy Plaid and A Joined Plaid dated 1748.