April 2, 2019
If you, like me, are fascinated by color, I have the book for you. Author Victoria Finlay’s “Color, A Natural History of the Palette” is a richly detailed, elegantly written, illuminating story of (to quote the chapter names) ochre, black and brown, white, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The book is part art history, part travelogue, part science lesson, and thoroughly entertaining. This is no dry treatise on the source of pigments. Rather it is a delightfully engaging rainbow of stories about our old pal color!
If you’ve ever wondered where the carmine red in Cherry Coke and lipstick comes from, read on. You’ll never look at a box of Crayolas the same way again.
Oh by the way, the color in carmine red comes from the blood of insects!
Let’s keep in touch,
Marshall