Ball - Bright Earth: the Invention of Colour

Contents

Colour in art as in life is both inspiring and uplifting, but where does it come from? How have artists found new hues, and how have these influenced their work? Beginning with the ancients when just a handful of pigments made up the artists palette and charting the discoveries and developments that have led to the many splendoured rainbow of modern paints, Bright Earth brings the story of colour spectacularly alive. Packed with anecdotes about lucky accidents and hapless misfortunes in the quests for new colours, it provides an entertaining and fascinating new perspective on the science of art.

Philip Ball is a freelance writer and a consultant editor for the worlds leading science journal Nature. He is a regular commentator on the interactions between science, art, history and culture. His previous books include Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour, H2O: A Biography of Water and Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads To Another, which won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.

The Devils Doctor: Paracelus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science

Elegant Solutions: Ten Beautiful Experiments in Chemistry

Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another

The Elements: A Very Short Introduction

Molecules: A Very Short Introduction

H2O: A Biography of Water

The Self-made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature

Made to Measure: New Materials for the 21st Century

Designing the Molecular World: Chemistry at the Frontier

How the rainbow is formed

Microscopic ribs on a butterflys wing (Dee Breger, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, New York)

Isaac Newtons colour wheel

Nineteenth-century colour stars

The visual system of the human eye

An alchemist at work

A painter saved by an image of the Virgin Mary (Cantigas de Santa Maria, folio 109r: Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid)

Ogden Roods colour wheel

Synthetic organic colourants

Turas Allegorical Figure, after cleaning but before restoration (National Gallery, London)

A painting illuminated by raking light (Tate Gallery, London)

Ugo da Carpi, Saturn (1604) (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

A nineteenth-century photographer and the equipment needed to make daguerreotypes

Photographic film

The spectra of printing inks

The colour gamut of TV phosphors, and how to treat colours outside the gamut

Wassily Kandinsky, Yellow Accompaniment (1924) (Guggenheim Museum, New York)

Michel-Eugne Chevreuls colour wheel (1864)

The CIE chromaticity diagram

Albert Munsells colour atlas (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

Cave art from Altamira, Spain, dating from c. 15000 BC (Art Resource, New York)

Egyptian faience (c. 1290 BC ) (British Museum, London)

Egyptian wall painting, probably from the tomb of Nebamun (c. 1350 BC ) (British Museum, London)

The Alexander mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii (before AD 79) (Museo Archeologica Nazionale, Naples)

The Villa of Mysteries, Pompeii (c. 50 BC ) (Art Resource, New York)

Attributed to Masaccio and Masolino, Saints Jerome and John the Baptist (c. 14238) (National Gallery, London)

The female painter Thamar, with an assistant (taken from an illuminated manuscript of 1403, ms 12.420, folio 86: Bibliothque Nationale, Paris; Art Resource, New York)

Giotto, the Arena Chapel in Padua (c. 1305) (Art Resource, New York)

The Master of Saint Bartholomew, Saints Peter and Dorothy (c. 150510) (National Gallery, London)

Giovanni del Ponte, The Ascension of St John the Evangelist (c. 141020) (National Gallery, London)

Giotto, The Betrayal of Christ (c. 1305) (Arena Chapel, Padua; Alinari/Art Resource, New York)

Nardo di Cione, St John the Baptist with St John the Evangelist(?) and St James (c. 1365) (National Gallery, London)

Raphael, The Madonna del Granduca (c. 1505) (Palazzo Pitti, Florence; Art Resource, New York)

Jan van Eyck, The Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife (The Arnolfini Marriage) (1434) (National Gallery, London)

Carlo Crivelli, Annunciation, with St Emidius (1486) (National Gallery, London)

Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne (1523) (National Gallery, London)

Titian, Portrait of a Man (c. 1512) (National Gallery, London)

Anthony van Dyck, Equestrian Portrait of Charles I (c. 16378) (National Gallery, London)

Paolo Veronese, Adoration of the Kings (1573) (National Gallery, London)

Tintoretto, St George and the Dragon (c. 1560) (National Gallery, London)

Peter Paul Rubens, Samson and Delilah (c. 1609) (National Gallery, London)

Anthony van Dyck, Charity (c. 16278) (National Gallery, London)

Rembrandt, Portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels (c. 16546) (National Gallery, London)

J. M. W. Turner, Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus (1829) (National Gallery, London)

William Holman Hunt, Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus (185051) (Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery)

Eugne Delacroix, Algerian Women in Their Apartment (1834) (Louvre, Paris. Photo RMN)

William Holman Hunt, Our English Coasts (later Strayed Sheep) (1852) (Tate Gallery, London)

Claude Monet, Regatta at Argenteuil (1872) (Muse dOrsay, Paris. Photo RMN/H. Lewandowski, S. Hubert; ADAGP, Paris, and DACS, London, 2001)

The Impressionist palette (National Gallery, London)

Claude Monet, Lavacourt under Snow (c. 1879) (National Gallery, London)

Georges Seurat, Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (18845) (Art Institute of Chicago)

Paul Czanne, Hillside in Provence (c. 1885) (National Gallery, London)

Paul Srusier, The Talisman (1888) (Muse dOrsay, Paris. Photo RMN/Jean Schormans)

Vincent van Gogh, The Night Caf (1888) (Yale University Art Gallery)

Jan van Eyck, The Virgin with Chancellor Rolin (c. 1437) (Louvre, Paris. Photo RMN/Herv Lewandowski)

Arthur Hughes, April Love (1856) (Tate Gallery, London)

A silk dress from c. 1862 dyed with Perkins mauve (Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library, London)

Lapis lazuli (Natural History Museum, London)

Duccio, The Virgin and Child with Saints (c. 1315) (National Gallery, London)

Titian, Madonna and Child with Saints John the Baptist and Catherine of Alexandria (c. 1530) (National Gallery, London)

Anish Kapoor, A Wing at the Heart of Things (1990) (National Gallery, London)

Yves Klein, IKB79 (1959) (Tate Gallery, London)

Yves Klein, Ex Voto for the Shrine of St Rita (1961) (Cascia Convent; David Bordes. ADAGP, Paris, and DACS, London)

Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne before cleaning (National Gallery, London)

Cosimo Tura,