This review originally appeared on the AOI blog.
And the history is fascinating: a deadly, poisonous, sometimes disgusting history. Whether it’s making pigments from animals, fruits, minerals or mummified bodies, it’s covered in there somewhere. Chromatopia is a great coffee table type book to dip in and out of at your leisure.
To round off the package there’s also a handy glossary towards the front, together with an overview of some colour basics, touching on some colour theory and cultural meanings/significances. One of the most intriguing sections is a selection of pigment recipes towards the back of the book, in case you fancy trying your hand at a bit of chemistry.
And in keeping with the rest of the histories featured in the book, at least one of the recipes is potentially poisonous.
