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Color: A Natural History of the Palette

3.8 of 5 stars 3.80 · rating details · 8,024 ratings · 287 reviews

Discover the tantalizing true stories behind your favorite colors.
For example: Cleopatra used saffron—a source of the color yellow—for seduction. Extracted from an Afghan mine, the blue “ultramarine” paint used by Michelangelo was so expensive he couldn’t afford to buy it himself. Since ancient times, carmine red—still found in lipsticks and Cherry Coke today—has come from...more

Paperback, 464 pages

Published December 30th 2003 by Random House Trade Paperbacks (first published January 1st 2003)

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Oct 11, 2009 Nancy McClure rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: any artistic soul

Shelves: worth-sitting-down-with-again

LOVE me a book where I can pick a chapter and read up on what's been taunting my mind - thus I love anthologies and various other collections.

in Color, I found a fantastic historical recounting of the who/where/why/what of much of our commonly accepted color palette. And that alone means something, because there is a surprisingly low ratio of 'general citizens' who knows REALLY what color is about, how it's made, how we wrestled/negotiated/bullied our ways into being enjoyers/purveyors of it. Lo...more

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Nov 21, 2007 Tracey rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: libraryread, pop-history, pop-science

In an impressive mix of history, science and travelogue. Ms. Finlay shares with her readers the results of her worldwide search for the pigments and dyes and that humankind has used over the ages. Each color (including black and white) is represented in a separate section, where she weaves stories of fictional and real-life people into her research with entertaining results.

From Australian sacred ochers to Phoenician royal purple; from Incan reds to Chinese imperial greens - this book literally...more

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May 25, 2008 Maura rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: artists, craftspeople, historians

Funny story with this book - got to page 112 and discovered that pages 113 to 146 were missing! Thankfully, Random House (publisher) came to the rescue and sent me a replacement copy. Until it came I was in suspense about how ladies used to poison themselves (by accident) with white cosmetics that were made from lead.

This book was interesting not only for the information about colors, but also for the author's travels. She went to great lengths to get to the source of some colors, and along the...more

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May 01, 2013 T rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: did-not-finish

If I were a history buff, I'm sure I'd have found it lovely. But a history buff I am not, and the first 28 pages were some pretty dry reading.

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Apr 15, 2013 Adrian Wade is currently reading it

"An image reflected in a mirror, a rainbow in the sky, and a painted scene make their impressions upon the mind, but in essence are other than what they seem. Look deeply at the world, and see an illusion, a magician's dream."- The Seventh Dalai Lama: "Song of the Immaculate Path"

The first challenge in writing about colors is that they don't really exist. Or rather they do exist, but only because our minds create them as an interpretation of vibrations that are happening around us. Everything in...more "An image reflected in a mirror, a rainbow in the sky, and a painted scene make their impressions upon the mind, but in essence are other than what they seem. Look deeply at the world, and see an illusion, a magician's dream."- The Seventh Dalai Lama: "Song of the Immaculate Path"

The first challenge in writing about colors is that they don't really exist. Or rather they do exist, but only because our minds create them as an interpretation of vibrations that are happening around us. Everything in the universe--whether it is classified as "solid" or "liquid" or "gas" or even "vacuum"--is shimmering and vibrating and constantly changing. But our brains don't find that a very useful way of comprehending the world. So we translate what we experience into concepts like "objects" and smells" and "sounds" and, of course, "colors," which are altogether easier for us to understand. - pg 4

What is important to remember about "chemical" coloring is that the light actually does affect the object. When light shines on a leaf, or a daub of paint, or a lump of butter, it actually causes it to rearrange its electrons, in a process called "transition." There the electrons are, floating quietly in clouds within their atoms, and suddenly a ray of light shines on them. Imagine a soprano singing high C and shattering a wineglass, because she catches its natural vibration. Something similar happens with the electrons, is a portion of the light happens to catch their natural vibration. It shoots them to another energy level and that relevant bit of light, that glass-shattering "note", is used up and absorbed. The rest is reflected out, and our brains read it as "color". - pg 5

For some reason it is easier to understand this idea of electromagnetic waves actually altering what they touch when you are talking about invisible ones like X rays. It is hard to believe that light--lovely friendly white light--also changes almost every object it hits, and not only the ones that contain chlorophyll which are waiting for the right wavebands of light to make them photosynthesize.
The best way I've found of understanding this is to think not so much of something "being" a color but of it "doing" a color. the atoms in a ripe tomato are busy shivering--or dancing or singing; the metaphors can be as joyful as the colors they describe--in such a way that when white light falls on them they absorb most of the blue and yellow light and they reject the red--meaning that the "red" tomato is actually one that contains every wavelength except red. A week before, those atoms would have been doing a slightly different dance--absorbing the red light and rejecting the rest, to give the appearance of a green tomato instead. - pg 6

"In old days the secrets were the artist's; now he is the first to be kept in ignorance of what he is using." William Holman Hunt, in an address to the London Society of Arts

"What did I learn at art school? I learned that art is painting, not painted." Harvey Fierstein, quoted in the exhibition "A Family Album: Brooklyn Collects" at Brooklyn Museum of Art, April 2001

"As has been said, you begin with drawing." Cennino Cennini

"Give me some mud off a city crossing, some ochre out of a gravel pit and a little whitening and some coal dust and I will paint you a luminous picture if you give me time to gradate my mud and subdue my dust." John Ruskin(less)

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Jul 11, 2011 Amy Beth rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-i-read-to-think, non-fiction, art-culture, histories

Finlay travels all around the world trying to find out the history of colors (she travels so much you wonder how her publisher could have afforded all that airfare and travel expenses). The funny thing is, much of the history is lost or inaccessible. She goes to Australia and decides not to try to find out more about the Aboriginal spiritual meanings of ochre out of respect for the culture. Many times she goes to a place only to be disappointed to find nothing left or even--as in the case of Ind...more

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Jun 02, 2011 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: art-inspired, how-things-are-made

This is not just a history of color, but a bustling travelogue of the world; Victoria Finlay is just my type of traveler-- she has a plan but she doesn't. She hears of a place where a color was developed and she goes, and hopefully, just hopefully, she meets the right people and finds what she is looking for. It's all very serendipitous. The book is categorized by colors; beginning with the earth tones (which, oddly enough, come from the earth) and moves on to my favorites of green, blues, and v...more

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Apr 09, 2010 Adrienne rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-count-2010, non-fiction

Have you ever wondered where the colors for paints and dyes come from? I'd thought a bit about colors, mostly in connection with the jerseys of my favorite sports teams - blue for the Mariners and Seahawks, bright green for Sounders and red for Arsenal - but only in the context of why those colors were chosen and how they look on a TV screen or on the playing field. I never thought about where the colors themselves came from, until I read this book.

Finlay gives a chapter on each color of the rai...more

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Jan 20, 2013 Ellen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, nonfiction, read-2013, reviewed

I'm torn. I learned some interesting stuff from this book, and in particular gained an appreciation of the fact that pigments had at one time their own personalities (and perils), as opposed to walking into an art store and picking one of several identical tubes.

However, I got the feeling that Finlay was aiming for a Mary Roach-esque style and just... missed. The tangents, rather than enhancing the central story, tended to bog it down.

It was also interesting in a perhaps not-good way to have rea...more

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Aug 25, 2012 Sam rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library, non-fiction, history, travel, america, asia, europe, england, india, middle-east

Colour is part travel, part history. Finlay has divided the book according to the rainbow and investigates how each colour was made in the time before synthetic colours. Where possible, she visits countries of traditional production and learns how to make these colours herself and also about how colour production changed societies and cultures. Finlay writes about why certain colours are given a high status (e.g. purple as the colour of royalty), compares how the same colours were made in differ...more Colour is part travel, part history. Finlay has divided the book according to the rainbow and investigates how each colour was made in the time before synthetic colours. Where possible, she visits countries of traditional production and learns how to make these colours herself and also about how colour production changed societies and cultures. Finlay writes about why certain colours are given a high status (e.g. purple as the colour of royalty), compares how the same colours were made in different countries and why some became prized over others.

I really enjoyed Colour. Finlay is an engaging writer who is fascinated by her subject matter and this comes across on the page. Finding out how colours were made was truly compelling as I had no idea that humans were so inventive. From sea snails to animal bones to bug blood to precious stones, there seems to be nothing colourful in nature that was not exploited for paint or dye at some time in history. I was fascinated with the complicated process of making colour, of how you go from a rock of lapis lazuli to a blue oil paint and how artists used to make their own colours and tones according to what they wanted to paint. Colour had power in history and there are plenty of accounts of countries and places become rich by making a fade-resistant paint that could be exported. Finlay does a good job of explaining how these colours then became exulted and held up by society, part of the fabric of life.

Although I enjoyed the travel sections, where Finlay meets people living where colours were made in the past and discusses the legacy of colour with them, these sections took a backseat for me to the sections about actually making the paint or dye itself. I would also have liked to learn more about modern paint making, about how many of the traditional colour sources are still used, and how the transition was made from natural to artificial colours. Finlay clearly feels like something has been lost as we're forgetting the secrets of natural colours and I couldn't help but agree with her. I'd be interested to see a modern paint-making factory to investigate how different things really are (I know you can still buy some traditional colours).

All in all, an absorbing and well written non-fiction book that I'm happy I picked up. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys travel or history, or anyone who has ever mixed their own colours using a watercolour set. (less)

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Jun 18, 2010 Gale rated it 3 of 5 stars

I've always been interested in color and have previous read The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky (****) by Ellen Meloy and Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World (*****) by Simon Garfield. Those books are very different, one being about natural history and the other about chemistry influencing fashion and ultimately changing a national industry.

Finlay's book is also unique; it's a travelogue where she searches for the historical origin of...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Kiwiflora rated it 5 of 5 stars

I remember when I was a child getting a box of paints in small tubes. I was fascinated by the names of the colours, words I had never heard of before - vermillion, magenta, aquamarine, cochineal, carmine. They might have been only shades of orange, purple, blue and red, but those exotic names gave those paints just a little more magic. Didn't do much for my art work, but never mind.

Victoria Finlay would appear to have had a similar early interest in colour when her father took her to Chartres C...more I remember when I was a child getting a box of paints in small tubes. I was fascinated by the names of the colours, words I had never heard of before - vermillion, magenta, aquamarine, cochineal, carmine. They might have been only shades of orange, purple, blue and red, but those exotic names gave those paints just a little more magic. Didn't do much for my art work, but never mind.

Victoria Finlay would appear to have had a similar early interest in colour when her father took her to Chartres Cathedral. She noticed the beauty of the stained glass window crafted some 800 years ago, only to be gob smacked when her father told her that no one actually knows how to make that beautiful blue in the window anymore. And so began her interest in discovering where colours come from and ultimately this book.

Part travelogue, part science text, part art history, part general history, the author has brought together a huge number and variety of facts and experiences and people into this rather large book of 440 pages, not including bibliography, notes and index which together run to another 60 pages! It could be very easy to have complete confusion in amalgamating all this material into a readable book. Probably the only way to do it with a subject such is colour is to organise it by colour. So she starts at the beginning with the colour of the earth - ochre - the first colour used for art and decoration. She goes to Australia, to an Aborigine community where ochre has been used continuously for 40,000 years. Imagine.

She then moves onto black and brown made from soot, coal, fish excretions, graphite rock, wasps, as well as giving us snippets about mummification and the history of printing. The next chapter, white, is mostly about lead which was used to make white paint, and especially make-up resulting in the early and painful deaths of many fashionable ladies. Following the colours of the rainbow, the next seven chapters take us all over the world. From cochineal bugs on cactus plants in Chile (red), to Stradivarius violins in Cremona (orange), to urine gathering in India and wars over saffron (yellow), to exploring caves in China (green), visiting the Bamiyan Buddhas not long before they were blown up (blue), harvesting indigo plants in India and Mexico (indigo) and going to Lebanon to search for the source of the power of purple in ancient Rome and Egypt (violet). And these are only a few of the stories that the author crams into her book.

If there is any criticism of the book it is perhaps that there is too much information, too many stories and adventures, making it hard to catagorise exactly what type of book it is. I would say, quite simply, it is a personal journey of a subject close to her heart that she wants to share with as many people as possible. It is an absolute treasure trove of action and inquiry and I learnt so much about all sorts of stuff! So glad I picked this book up from the shelf of a second hand book shop!
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Apr 23, 2013 Lynne Jones rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I bought this to help with research for a book I'm planning to write and expected no more than a list of useful but dusty old facts. I couldn't have been more wrong. It really brought the story of paints and dyes to life, highlighting the struggle and poverty underpinning the extraction and use of some of the most glorious and expensive pigments used in art. The origins of some pigments were so bizarre it makes you wonder how anyone ever thought of using them in the first place. It was odd to se...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Becky B rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Color, or Colour, depending which edition you purchase, is a walk through the historic sources of dyes and pigments. Finlay takes you with her as she travels the world to find the ancient secrets of the rainbow of colors, and even black, white and brown. Each chapter explores a different color. Sometimes Finlay focuses primarily on one source, and sometimes she explores several. I found some chapters more interesting than others, but that could be the nature of the beast so to speak. Everyone ha...more

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Oct 24, 2012 Kam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, mythology-and-folklore, science, travel, art, non-fiction

Colors fascinate us. Most of us can name a short list of favorite colors, often trying to surround ourselves in them so we may experience them on a regular basis. We may be drawn to something because of its color: a flower in a vase, perhaps, or a cake in a display case. Certain combinations may be off-putting (some neon colors slapped together give the fashion police conniptions), while others are soothing, or exciting, or surreal. So much of our daily experience comes through the eyes, after a...more

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Mar 31, 2012 Marsha rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Ms. Finlay set out on an unusual journey: to find out about colors, how they originated, how they’re reproduced in modern times and how some colors are in danger of fading from the world. In doing so, she created a captivating look at a subject many people simply don’t consider. What makes red? What makes this red different from that? What was the fascination with mauve? Such a book doesn’t come along every day and if you’ve ever wondered about what lies behind the man-made dyes used in everythi...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, travel

Part travelogue, part history, part science, this book traces the source and history of the colors of the rainbow, as well as black, brown and white. Finlay travelled the world (including some very remote areas quite unsafe for a single woman to be on her own), experiencing many different cultures, taboos and restrictions regarding many ancient colors. I found it a fascinating and enjoyable read,and Finlay's enthusiasm and passion for the stories she brings to the page shine on every page. Finla...more

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Oct 09, 2012 Tracey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've always been fascinated about the origins of colour, and in Color - A Natural History of the Palette, author Victoria Finlay travels the world in her search for the origin and birthplace of colors and dyes.

I wasn't interested in the author's personal travelogue, so I initially had the intention of skipping over any boring parts and jumping straight to the facts about the colours which are conveniently broken down into the following chapter headings:

1. Ochre
2. Black and Brown
3. White
4. Red
5....more

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Oct 22, 2011 Lester rated it 3 of 5 stars

Although I at first believed this book to be about the origins of dyes and pigments, it turned out to be a mixture of travelog, anthropology, colour and irritating wanderings. The parts about the origin of colour were fascinating, and it is worth reading the book for those alone. The first chapters however included a lot about the origins of native Australians and Americans, and I struggled to wade through that in the search for something about colour. The same is to be said about the discussion...more

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Oct 10, 2009 Spencer King rated it 1 of 5 stars

Her introduction was fairly solid as a basic introduction to the ideas of the book and the sort of personal/historical figure/historic background of pigment manipulation over time. The introduction presents an autobiographical account of running into stories about pigments. The autobiography becomes a narrative framework in which to present the different accounts of historical figures in relation to color, and the overarching history of pigment manipulation.

However, as the book actually started,...more

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Mar 21, 2007 Kathryn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Whimsy! It has all the adventure of any good travel book as the journalist-author seeks the mysterious origins of various dyes, and enough conversation pieces to satisfy any connoisseur of arcane knowledge.

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Apr 02, 2011 Richard MacManus rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an adventure story, a history of colors told by a woman who traveled the world to see for herself how paint and dye colors were made. Firstly I was very impressed by her willingness to seek out the stories of color by exploring out-of-the-way places like an Afghanistan mine, the Australian outback and a Mexican village. Secondly, I enjoyed how she brought each color (and its many variants) alive through her story-telling. Some of the colors were literally alive, like the cochineal beetle...more

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Oct 22, 2008 Miles rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was an enjoyable book to read, but ultimately more of a travel book than a book about color. The adventures of the author tend to be given rather more weight than the subject.

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Aug 10, 2008 Lisa rated it 4 of 5 stars

this is an excellent book - if you are at all interested in historical pigments and where they came/come from - finlay weaves interesting anecdotes as she travels the world

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May 27, 2013 Mortalform is currently reading it

Shelves: 32-numbers-game, art-craft, non-fiction, pagan

Why should some substances absorb red light while others absorb blue? And why should others -'white' ones- not absorb very much light at all?... light does actually affect the object. When light shines on a leaf, or a daub of paint, or a lump of butter, it actually causes it to rearrange its electrons, in a process called 'transition'.
There the electrons are, floating quietly in clouds with in their atoms, and suddenly a ray of light shines on them. Imagine a soprano singing a high C and shatter...more Why should some substances absorb red light while others absorb blue? And why should others -'white' ones- not absorb very much light at all?... light does actually affect the object. When light shines on a leaf, or a daub of paint, or a lump of butter, it actually causes it to rearrange its electrons, in a process called 'transition'.
There the electrons are, floating quietly in clouds with in their atoms, and suddenly a ray of light shines on them. Imagine a soprano singing a high C and shattering a wineglass, because she catches its natural vibration. Something similar happens with the electrons, if a portion of the light happens to catch their natural vibration. It shoots them to another energy level and that relevant bit of light, that glass-shattering 'note', is used up and absorbed. The rest is reflected out, and our brains read it as colour. p5-6

...the phenomenon of colour is about vibrations and the emission of energy. p7

The sense that light is a manifestation of the glory of the sacred... is common to almost every faith. p36

Many paintings today tend to be created with the buyer in mind, rather than because they needed to be painted for their own sake. p38

...finding a way of representing what was esoteric by something that was exoteric- something that was hidden by something that could be shown. p70

The charcoal willow...the ancient plant the Viking women wove into useful containers while there men were out exploring and pillaging. They called it 'viker', from Old English derived the verb 'wican' meaning to bend, and modern English gets the adjetive 'weak'... p 87

Registrar's ink--- gets darker with age. ...contains a cocktail of chemicals that react with the surface of the paper and oxidise, turing to a black that will not fade in sunlight and is resistant to water... tannic and gallic acid mixed with iron sulphate (vitroil) p 105

When we see a finished painting we tend to assess it for such things as composition, emotion, colour and perspective. But what the artist experiences moment by moment...painting is sometimes and entirely tactile act where time is forgotten... 146
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May 03, 2012 Nicole rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is really awesome if you're looking for an engagingly-written travelogue that is not completely fucking inane like Eat, Pray, Love. It's a fantastic overview of the history of color and definitely got me wanting to read more on the subject. The main problem with the book is that the writing is good while the scholarship is so-so. That may be an editorial decision, I don't know. I just know that there were a lot of things I wanted to learn more about, and had difficulty doing so by look...more

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Jul 01, 2009 Dacotah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Where do the pigments come from in artist's paint? That is the central theme of this book. If you have ever wondered what ochre is, or what the first artists of the world used, this book will answer those questions. Victoria Finlay has researched and travelled the world to bring the palette to life and it is a fascinating journey. How pigments are extracted, the history of each pigment is given its own color chapter - it progresses from the earliest pigments to the most recent. A wonderful resou...more

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Jun 05, 2012 andrew said rated it 2 of 5 stars

A globe-trotting book filled with interesting entomology and history of color, using ROYGBIV as the template. However the book gets bogged down with incomplete and unresolved personal anecdotes on her journey to find the origin of each color. In nearly every chapter, the author will drive up the importance of a particular hue and her life-or-death quest to find it, only to come up empty-handed and move on to a different part of the world or worse downplay its significance. It becomes very frustr...more

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Mar 12, 2011 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

I learned so much from this book, like . . . the formula for Red is relatively unchanged from the beginning of its existance, searching for the origin of Orange can teach you a lot about violins, Yellow and White are the deadlyest colors, and Green, although the most prevelent in nature, is the hardest color to replicate in paint. This book is also a travel journal, so I felt like I was getting to visit a lot of unusual places as I read. Unusual places, unusual facts, and a broud scope of inform...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Maddy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Some passages are infectious with her fascination for the colors (pigments) and the histories. However, there was a lot of fanciful "What if"-ing, when the facts were not available. Also, the huge chunks of history could have been broken down into something easier to digest. The section on lapiz lazuli in Afghanistan was such a terribly dry read.

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Almost half a year later, finally finished reading this. Often found myself glossing over paragraphs, and had to take breaks to get my concentration...more

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