The discovery, use and development of various materials for artistic purposes is the subject of this chapter. Beginning with the Stone Age, ancient humans applied heat to plant, animal and mineral substances, effecting chemical transformations into products useful for artistic expression. Some of these products, like metals and glass, gave rise to flourishing artistic specialties like sculpture and ceramics. A key component of almost every work of art was color, a property that remained associated intimately with the material in which it inhered; how it was produced stretched the artist-chemist’s versatility to the limit. Discovery of new artistic materials also went hand in hand with the discovery of the elements, particularly in the area of pigment production. At every step along the way, new discoveries by chemists placed new artistic materials into the hands of artists so quickly that the two disciplines actually co-evolved as partners in progress.