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"The unforgettable, unknown history of colors and the vivid stories behind them in a beautiful multi-colored volume The Secret Lives of Color tells the unusual stories of seventy-five fascinating shades, dyes and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history. In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from (whether Van Gogh's chrome yellow sunflowers or punk's fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilization. Across fashion and politics, art and war, the secret lives of color tell the vivid story of our culture. "A mind-expanding tour of the world without leaving your paintbox. Every color has a story, and here are some of the most alluring, alarming, and thought-provoking."--Simon Garfield, author of Just My Type"--… (more)
User reviews
Each page has the color placed on the edge, and an anecdotal description and history of each color or shade. Each description is a page and a half or more, but each one did the best thing that an author can do- make the reader want to find out more. The old description of good writing, that it is "for provocation rather than information", is accomplished here, since the reader is provoked to find out more.
Recommended for larger libraries with reference sections; art libraries and collections; general humanities collections, and high school libraries. Not a good book for reading in one sitting, but it is a good travel book or one for reading with frequent interruptions (in short, a good bathroom book). I enjoyed it.
That was a mistake, but I learned (well no, I let most of it pass me over) more than I ever wanted to know, that I didn't even know was possible to know, about:
White + Seven (7) variations
Yellow + Ten (10) variations
Orange + Six (6) variations
Pink + Seven (7) variations
Red + Seven (7) variations
Purple + Six (6) variations
Blue + Eight (8) variations
Green + Eight (8) variations
Brown + Eight (8) variations
Black + Eight (8) variations
Included is a Preface & six (6) chapters prior to the investigation of the history of each color AND a Glossary, Notes, Bibliography (and suggested other reading), Acknowledgements, & Index all for 320 pages of mind-numbing, sleep inducing reading.
I am an artist; I use color, lots & lots of color; I mistakenly thought this book would further my knowledge of what I already knew: Lead white or red or orange is poisonous; Green is from arsenic & therefore also poisonous & William Morris used it heavily in his clothing & wallpaper; Sepia is squid ink; and cochineal (which we have & talk about at the Garden I docent at), used as natural food coloring, is a Bug!
It took me well over 6-8 months to read this and it hurt my brain. However, if you have a steel-trap for a brain and you want to learn about the composition & history of traditional colors used in art, clothing/fashion, make-up, and/or decor this is the book for you.
I'm thinking of gifting it to my favorite watercolor artist, it would better serve as a go-to reference source, rather than a sit-down "let's read for a bit" book!
It earned a 2nd ★ for the completeness & depth of information
In this fascinating book, St Clair has uncovered the history behind 75 different colour shades and hues and tell their individual story. We find out where in the world these colours originated from, who made them popular, just how expensive a vivid blue like ultramarine was and the chemistry behind turning ground rock into artist’s paint and dyes for cloth. Modern colours are fairly robust, but it is a reminder just how lethal some colours were. The historical account of colour is enlightening too, as we find out which have come into fashion, why some prefer blondes, which colour was behind a notorious seduction and which have remained popular and those that currently don’t fit the bill.
Not only is it a nicely written and fascinating book, but it is a beautifully produced book too; each colour group is split into sections and the margins on each page are coloured to match the shade being written about. As you read though each page changes subtly in colour and tone. Just rippling through the pages you transcend from white to yellow to the reds, blues greens and end up at the black, it is a nice effect. The dots on the front are embossed making touching the cover a tactile experience. It was worth reading and would make a good companion volume to Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour by Philip Ball and Colour: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay if you already have those.
The author provides a brief introduction about how we see and perceive colour, then goes on to provide a short vignette on 76 different colours in a few pages each. The
Some examples of how color interacts with our world:
Sensationalist literature of 19C kept between yellow covers (yellow journalism) — the Middle Ages forced ostracized groups to wear yellow vs the ‘Yellow Nineties’ as artists adopted it in repudiation of Victorian values.
Orange was the star of Monet’s ‘Impression, Sunrise’ (plus color contrast theory, leading to a new movement. The orange-red minium is the color of illuminated manuscript capitals/pilcrows leading to our word ‘miniature’. New theories on shadows (they weren’t black or grey but actually colored) and complementary color schemes (violet complements yellow) ergo the shade depicted in a painting would be soft violet. 1881 Manet “Fresh air is violet”: This was exciting to read because I have always thought the same thing.