Book Review: Chromatopia: An Illustrated History of Color

This is a book on the interesting history on how 50 extraordinary pigments are created or where they come from. As someone who uses watercolour and reviews art supplies, there are so many pigments and dyes included in this book that I've not heard of.

Some of the pigments featured are Orpiment, Realgar, Woad, Tyrian Purple (made from sea snails) and Verdigris. Have you heard of them? There are also pigments made from urine, cow dung, crushed insects and more commonly known deadly metals.

This book is for those who love colours and pigments and already know their Lemon Yellows and Phthalo Blues because those are too common to be included in this 224-page hardcover. Publisher is Thames and Hudson.

The author David Coles has been working with colours and pigments for almost 4 decades. He's also the founder of Langridge Artist Colours that sells paint. Needless to say he's extremely knowledgeable on this subject.

This is an interesting book. It's a good book to complement other books on pigments that you may already have.

If you like this book, also check out Artist's Color Manual: The Complete Guide to Working with Color and Colour in the Making: From Old Wisdom to New Brilliance.

Chromatopia: An Illustrated History of Color is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | AU | JP | CN)

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