If You're Curious About These Questions...
You should listen to this audiobook
- How did an accidental chemical discovery involving arsenic lead to a popular green paint that may have killed Napoleon Bonaparte?
- Why did famous painters like J.M.W. Turner intentionally use a fading red pigment made from crushed desert insects?
- In what surprising way did the combat of the Vietnam War physically alter the composition of yellow paint exported from Asia?
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Key Takeaways from Color
- The brilliant white paint favored by Renaissance masters was highly toxic and manufactured using a bizarre combination of lead shavings, vinegar, and cow manure.
- Carmine red, a historically impermanent pigment favored by artists for its immediate vibrancy, is derived from the blood of cochineal bugs and remains widely used in modern cosmetics and foods.
- The extraction of gamboge yellow from Asian tree resin was so disrupted by 20th-century conflicts that exported pigments were often contaminated with mud and actual bullets.
- True ultramarine blue was so expensive and difficult to extract from Afghan lapis lazuli that even legendary artists like Michelangelo sometimes couldn't afford to paint with it.
- Extracted from rare sea creatures, Tyrian purple was so phenomenally expensive that Roman emperors used the dye to enforce strict social hierarchies and generate tax revenue.
Color — Full Chapter Overview
- 1Recommendation
- 2Ochre was the earliest paint color and remains a vital shade even now.
- 3White paint was beloved, lethal and distinctly repulsive.
- 4Red carmine is potent at first on a canvas, but slowly diminishes.
- 5A common yellow pigment hails from Asia, though its purity has long been uncertain.
- 6Napoleon’s demise might be linked to the arsenic contained in green paint.
- 7Genuine ultramarine blue is prized across cultures and is still extremely precious.
- 8Indigo dye obtained from plants adorned ancient Britons going into battle.
- 9Purple is the most regal of hues, even shaping the courtship of Caesar and Cleopatra.
Color Summary & Overview
Color: A Natural History of the Palette (2002) tells the intriguing and odd stories connected to the discovery of pigments and the use of paints. From the prehistoric use of ochre in cave drawings to the outlawing of white paint in the twentieth century, these blinks are full of surprising, colorful information.
Who Should Listen to Color?
- People curious about how humans perceive the world around them
- Seasoned or aspiring graphic designers, illustrators and photographers
- Anyone interested in art history
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