The Pallid Palette Prize

By PAUL GRAY/

JOHN CHAFEE

Artists are up in arms because the Rhode Island Senator wants to ban the use of cadmium as a pigment on the ground that it can be toxic. The artists argue that cadmium produces some of the brightest tones and, moreover, that Van Gogh could not have painted Sunflowers without it.

With reporting by David E. Thigpen