The Secret Lives of Color

Eleven years ago I had the opportunity to see one of my favourite paintings IRL: Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers (specifically F458, housed in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam). Though Starry Night is my absolute favourite Van Gogh painting, I've always been drawn to Sunflowers because of how ridiculously, wonderfully exuberant the image is. And there may have been a reason for that exuberance: if I have my history aright, Van Gogh made his Sunflower paintings during a particularly optimistic, joyous part of his life - a halcyon time, if you will, that stands in contrast to his work from before, and after, that period. Yellow, the predominant colour in the image, certainly enhances those feelings, and may be why Van Gogh used it in the first place.

And colours is what Kassia St. Clair's book is all about: not only their histories and chemical makeup, but also what they've come to mean in the wider world. The book doesn't include each and every single colour currently in use, nor does she go very in-depth with them (the colours in the main book each get a short chapter about them, while a glossary of colours at the end contains a colour swatch and a brief description of said colour), but what information there is, is very fascinating indeed. Eminently readable too; St. Clair's prose is part of what makes this book wonderful to read. Excellent for anyone interested in art, as well as anyone who's just curious about things like “Why are Apple products white?” (spoiler: they???re actually not white)or “Why do girls wear pink and boys blue?” (spoiler: arbitrary aesthetic choices in the early 20th century).