Travels around the world discovering the origins of the pigments that make dyes and paint – totally fascinating. Spotted with historical fact, anecdotes, vivid descriptions and a deep appreciation of art, this is a wonderful book.

Synopsis

Part travelogue, part narrative history, COLOUR unlocks the history of the colours of the rainbow, and reveals how paints came to be invented, discovered, traded and used. This remarkable and beautifully written book remembers a time when red paint was really the colour of blood, when orange was the poison pigment, blue as expensive as gold, and yellow made from the urine of cows force-fed with mangoes. It looks at how green was carried by yaks along the silk road, and how an entire nation was founded on the colour purple.

Exciting, richly informative, and always surprising, COLOUR lifts the lid on the historical palette and unearths an astonishing wealth of stories about the quest for colours, and our efforts to understand them.

Reviews

'It's pure pleasure to join this gutsy arts reporter-cum-scholar on her quest for historical pigments and dyes around the world' - Independent

'Full of forgotten facts and beguiling anecdotes...it would be hard to confront a painting ever again without seeing in it a kind of coded map of the world' - Telegraph

'Both picaresque and picturesque, it's a rich read' - Evening Standard

About the Author

Victoria Finlay studied social anthropology at St Andrews University, specialising in Asian culture. She worked as a journalist in Hong Kong for eleven years, five of which were spent as arts editor for the South China Morning Post. She has recently moved back to England and is busy researching her second book - a biography of precious stones. Photograph © Martin Palmer More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation