The Art Of Colour

Finalist for the Marfield Prize, the National Award for Arts Writing: a unique approach to the history of art told through the story of colour and pigments.

As Featured on BBC Worldwide

Did you know that the ultramarine that shimmers at the centre of Vermeer's Milkmaid connects that masterpiece with 6th-century Zoroastrian paintings found on the walls of cave temples in Bamiyan, Afghanistan? Or that the surging waves that crest and curl in Hokusai's perilous Great Wave off Kanagawa owe their absorbing blue lustre to an alchemist who was born in Frankenstein's Castle in 1673? And were the Pre-Raphaelites really obsessed with a murky brown hue derived from the pulverized remains of ancient mummies? (Spoiler: they were.)

Invented by prehistoric cave-dwellers and medieval conjurers, cunning conmen and savvy scientists, the colours of art tell a riveting tale all their own.