Color : A Natural History of the Palette

Rating:
Summary: Learned so much
Review: I recommend this book to everyone. Ms. Finlay's research into the history of paint pigments offers so many interesting facts, from the source of the color known as 'mummy brown', to the toxicity of the original white pigment, to what gives some soda its red tint.
In this book, not only are we treated to information on hues in the paintbox, but learn some interesting facts about the people, culture, and geography of the areas of the world where these colors originated.

Rating:
Summary: History through a kaleidoscope
Review: This book takes you on rollicking adventures all over the globe in pursuit of the origins of natural pigments and dyes used throughout history. The writer is one gutsy lady - she's the kind who will go to Afghanistan, twice, while still under Taliban rule, to see some idle lapis lazuli mines just to complete her story. So the reader gets the benefits of her audacious journeys minus the formidable dangers, visa and permit applications that never get approved, and the flapping boot that she had to endure.

Overall, this book suited me just fine. I am interested in color, love travelogues, and appreciate it when I can get an intelligent account of something minus the pretension, i.e. with some of the earthy details of everyday living and the real, human emotional reactions that go with it. I enjoyed reading about Finlay's interactions with people of all different colors, cultures, social stations, languages, and cuisines. I was amazed at how she would simply up and fly to a tiny, exotic place mentioned in letters or other historical documents as the source of some pigment, armed with only persistence and the expectation of good luck - and then actually succeed in tracking down a story for her book. I wonder how many disappointments and wild goose chases she omitted from the text! Prepare for journeys on the rough through aboriginal Australia, Spanish saffron farms, Monghyr and Barasat, India, Mixteco-speaking Mexico, Tyre, Lebanon, and the Dunhuang caves in Western China. You will learn why Spain worked so hard to keep the origin of cochineal red secret, how Indian farmers rebelled against forced labor on indigo plantations, about yellow and orange ochre body paint in the Australian outback, deadly Scheele's green (is that what really killed Napoleon?), and mummy brown, which really did come from mummies.

I especially like how this book draws on history that I have a passing acquaintance with and suddenly makes it feel close and real, peopled with men and women like anybody you know.

I didn't much care for the 'I would like to imagine...' parts, since once something is in print it is so easily cited and re-cited and soon becomes part of the historical canon - I think Finlay could have practiced a bit more restraint and omitted these.

I read the original UK version of this book, entitled _Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox_, and wish that books from the UK could just stay in British English for the US market, maybe with footnotes added for clarity when needed - it would help increase mutual understanding, for one thing, and it's also nice to keep the original flavor of the writing.

Order, and get ready for a heady, dizzying journey into colors with a past.

Rating:
Summary: The Travel History of Artist Pigments
Review: This is a joy of a book. Victoria Finley has taken a subject that is very important, but seldom discussed - namely how did we get the colors used by artists for painting - and wove it into a personal account of her travels to find their sources. In the process she introduces the reader to all manner of exotic and little-known, but delightful facts, peoples and places. From cochineal (I might note here that as an entomologist I was somewhat discouraged by her apparent inability to decide whether to call the source a beetle or a bug- it is a BUG! - the one clinker in an otherwise well done book), through madder as a source of orange, saffron for yellow, and on to lapis lazuli for blue, etc. The book is (as noted) also a personal travel narrative with lots of side trips. I found these to be fascinating and to add interest to a book that might have been a dry compendium of facts about chemicals.

"Color: A Natural History of the Palette" is a good book to curl up with at night or to read on an airplane. The reader will find enough local "color" and interesting tidbits to make the hours very pleasant indeed. This is, I think, especially true of artists who may not know much about the colors they use in their work.