The Art of Colour

A unique approach to the history of art told through the story of colour and pigments.

Did you know that the ultramarine that shimmers at the centre of Vermeer¿s Milkmaid connects that masterpiece with 6th-century Zoroastrian paintings found on the walls of cave temples in Bamiyan, Afghanistan? Or that the surging waves that crest and curl in Hokusai¿s perilous Great Wave off Kanagawa owe their absorbing blue lustre to an alchemist who was born in Frankenstein¿s Castle in 1673? And were the Pre-Raphaelites really obsessed with a murky brown hue derived from the pulverized remains of ancient mummies?

The history of colour is an epic saga of human ingenuity and insatiable desire. Read this book and you will never look at a work of art in quite the same way.

The History of Art in 39 Pigments 978-0-500-02481-2