Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox

This travel history follows the origins of pigments colour by colour, from ochre and charcoal through reds, yellows, greens, blues, and violet. Finlay visits mines, workshops, and markets where ochre is dug, cochineal is harvested, indigo is fermented, and ultramarine was once ground from lapis. Chapters mix chemistry, trade, and local story: Australian ochre, saffron and Indian yellow, Chinese greens, Afghan lapis, Tyrian purple. Painters and dyers appear as users of these materials rather than as biographical subjects. The book is a material history of colour, not a manual of painting technique and not a survey of art movements.

Bound in cloth blocked with a coloured design. Pictorial slipcase. Presentation volume for 2010.