Winner of the Mitchell Prize for the History of Art

‘In its wonderfully lucid command of detail, as well as in many other ways, this book is exemplary.’ – Richard Wollheim in The Times Literary Supplement

'A book of extraordinary discussions on a wide range of issues – Greek colour theory, mosaics, stained glass, heraldry, the rainbow, drawing versus colorito in Venetian painting, colour vocabulary, Newtonian optics, Goethe's colour theories, the chemistry of pigments, efforts to correlate colours with sounds, the role of colour in abstract painting, and much, much more.

No one interested in painting can afford not to study it.' – The London Review of Books
'… an altogether outstanding and seminal book.' – The Tablet
'A good many of it chapters are likely to remain the standard treatment of their respective topics for years to come …' – Sir Ernst Gombrich in The Burlington Magazine

Also of interest

Colour and Meaning
Colour in Art
Colour: Making and Using Dyes and Pigments