Journalist Kassia St. Clair explores the range of human history through color in 75 stories about shades, hues, pigments and dyes. It might seem odd to describe a book about color as a real page-turner, but color pervades our lives in countless ways from the personal to the cultural. Open any page in this beautiful book, and you'll find fascinating information and facts, anecdotes and secret formulas.
In a short introduction, St. Clair explains how we see and how light affects what we see. Remember that dress on social media and how millions of people looked at the image and couldn't agree on its color? She also discusses the color spectrum and the difficulty craftsmen and alchemists faced through the years as they worked to create stable pigments or to achieve a color, like the 70,000 dried beetles needed to produce a pound of raw cochineal, a red dye. Cochineal was favored by Aztecs and Incas as well as the conquering Spaniards, who shipped this precious commodity to Europe where it was used for medicine and women's cosmetics and to dye clerics' garments and Venetian velvet. It's still used today in items such as Cherry Cokes and M&Ms (labeled as E120).
Throughout history, color has played significant roles in politics, art, war, trade and fashion. Colors go in and out of style, and resources become depleted from overuse of natural materials, but some things remain the same: kohl is as popular today as it was in Egypt during the time of the pharaohs when both men and women lined their eyes with the substance.
St. Clair backs up her reference to color's "secret lives" with plenty of detailed information about the history and uses of color. For example:
Red has long signified power; warriors, kings and cardinals wore red garments, and 74 percent of the world's flags feature red. This color is also associated with sex, aggression and death: The devil is usually depicted as red, and prostitutes in the Middle Ages often wore red as prescribed by sumptuary laws.
Purple symbolizes royalty, opulence and imperial power. Julius Caesar wore a special toga after his son by Cleopatra was born - in a color only he was permitted to wear. It was Tyrian purple, Cleopatra's favorite color, made from a liquid extracted from the glands of two Mediterranean shellfish - 250,000 shellfish to make one ounce of dye.
Pink is for girls, and blue for boys, right? Well, no. Until the mid-20th century, pink was recommended for boys as the "more decided and stronger color" with blue considered "more delicate and dainty," a color for girls, the hue for the Virgin Mary. Before then, with infant mortality and high birth rates, children 2 years and younger generally wore white linen dresses.
At one time, blue was associated with barbarism, later with mourning and misfortune. Picasso used cerulean during his blue period, an extended period of grief after the death of his sister. Today, blue embodies peace and qualities of the spirit. It was the color of choice for the logo developed for the United Nations, established after the devastation of World War II to preserve world peace.
Some of the most interesting sections concern green and its various shades from verdigris and absinthe to celadon and emerald green. Green was the prophet Muhammad's favorite color (along with white), and many Islamic countries use green in their flags. In the past, green had links with poisons, jealousy and demons, but today it is associated with spring, new growth and the environment.
There's far more in this book than can be covered in a brief review. There's khaki and its development for military uniforms; there's sepia, produced from cephalopods; there's dragon's blood, gamboge, ultramarine, amaranth and lead white. But you get the idea: This is a color-full book.
The book itself is an elegant printed object. Each page features a different color strip along the page edge, and the book block, when closed, shows a rainbow of colors. The author's writing, as vivid as the colors she describes, and extensive research result in a book well worth reading.
Madeline Matson is the reference and adult programming librarian at Missouri River Regional Library.