Colour: Travels Through The Paintbox

Author: Victoria Finlay

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $26.99 AUD
  • : 9780340733295
  • : Hodder & Stoughton
  • : Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
  • : 0.363
  • : April 2003
  • : 198mm X 130mm X 30mm
  • : 26.99
  • :
  • :
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Victoria Finlay
  • :
  • : Paperback
  • :
  • : 512
  • : maps, illustrations
  • :
Barcode 9780340733295
9780340733295

Description

Part travelogue, part narrative history, Colour unlocks the history of the colours of the rainbow, and reveals how paints came to be invented, discovered, traded and used. This remarkable and beautifully written book remembers a time when red paint was really the colour of blood, when orange was the poison pigment, blue as expensive as gold, and yellow made from the urine of cows force-fed with mangoes. It looks at how green was carried by yaks along the silk road, and how an entire nation was founded on the colour purple. Exciting, richly informative, and always surprising, 'Colour' lifts the lid on the historical palette and unearths an astonishing wealth of stories about the quest for colours, and our efforts to understand them.

Author description

Victoria Finlay studied social anthropology at St Andrews University, specialising in Asian culture. She worked as a journalist in Hong Kong for eleven years, five of which were spent as arts editor for the "South China Morning Post".