Colour Travels Through Paintbox

Finlay, Victoria

£12.99

Part travelogue, part narrative history, this text lifts the lid on the historical palette and unearths a wealth of stories about the quest for colours, and our efforts to understand them.

Available on backorder

Publish Date: 26/05/2003

Description

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

‘Both picaresque and picturesque, it’s a rich read.’ Evening Standard

Colour tells the remarkable story of Victoria Finlay’s quest to uncover the many secrets hidden inside the paintbox. On her travels she visited remote Central American villages where women still wear skirts dyed with the purple tears of sea snails; learned how George Washington obsessed about his green dining room while he should have been busy with matters of state; and investigated the mystery of Indian Yellow paint, said to have been made from the urine of Indian cows force-fed with mango leaves.

From mascara to nomadic carpets and pillar boxes, the story of colour is the story of the efforts of artists and artisans to reproduce the rainbow – and the impact their work has had on the world.

‘[Her] curiosity is inexhaustible, her reading wide, and her writing style a delight’ Sunday Telegraph

Additional information

Weight 360 g
Dimensions 196 × 128 × 38 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Paperback

Pages

494

Language

English

Edition
Dewey

535.609 (edition:22)

Readership

General – Trade / Code: K