Color: A Natural History of the Palette

In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artists palette Victoria Finlay takes us on an enthralling adventure around the world and through the ages illuminating how the colors we choose to value have determined the history of culture itself. How did the most precious color blue travel all the way from remote lapis mines in Afghanistan to Michelangelos brush? What is the connection between brown paint and ancient Egyptian mummies? Why did Robin Hood wear Lincoln green? In Color Finlay explores the physical materials that color our world such as precious minerals and insect blood as well as the social and political meanings that color has carried through time. Roman emperors used to wear togas dyed with a purple color that was made from an odorous Lebanese shellfishwhich probably meant their scent preceded them. In the eighteenth century black dye was called logwood and grew along the Spanish Main. Some of the first indigo plantations were started in America amazingly enough by a seventeen-year-old girl named Eliza. And the popular van Gogh painting White Roses at Washingtons National Gallery had to be renamed after a researcher discovered that the flowers were originally done in a pink paint that had faded nearly a century ago. Color is full of extraordinary people events and anecdotespainted all the more dazzling by Finlays engaging style. Embark upon a thrilling adventure with this intrepid journalist as she travels on a donkey along ancient silk trade routes; with the Phoenicians sailing the Mediterranean in search of a special purple shell that garners wealth sustenance and prestige; with modern Chilean farmers breeding and bleeding insects for their viscous red blood. The colors that craft our world have never looked so bright.