Reading Colour: Travels Through The Paintbox, by Victoria Finlay is like inhaling a field of marigolds.
Every colour of the rainbow, and all the tones that can be described, are caught between the pages of this book.
Take yourself on a multi-faceted adventure, through a kaleidoscope of pigment stories.
Part travelogue, part botany, part geology, part history, discover tales of alchemy and accident. Learn about The War of the Pencil and how graphite is graded. Sympathise with The Post Office’s problems with fading red pillar boxes. Be wowed by those who have a synaesthetic relationship to colours, connecting them to music.
Explore the whole palette, then return to your own paintbox with a deeper understanding of how each colour was made.
Colour was Victoria Finlay’s first book, which took her to seventeen different countries. She studied Anthropology, worked in Hong Kong as a journalist for twelve years and continues to write, give talks and be entranced by reading.
Colour: Travels Through The Paintbox, by Victoria Finlay, is published by Sceptre.
