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Title details for The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair - Wait list

The Secret Lives of Color

by Kassia St. Clair
Kassia St. Clair
Audiobook (Includes supplementary content)
0 of 1 copy available
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0 of 1 copy available
One of USA Today's “100 Books to Read While Stuck at Home During the Coronavirus Crisis” 
A dazzling gift, the unforgettable, unknown history of colors and the vivid stories behind them in a beautiful multi-colored volume.
“Beautifully written . . . Full of anecdotes and fascinating research, this elegant compendium has all the answers.” —NPR, Best Books of 2017
The Secret Lives of Color tells the unusual stories of seventy-five fascinating shades, dyes, and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso’s blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history.
In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from (whether Van Gogh’s chrome yellow sunflowers or punk’s fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilization. Across fashion and politics, art and war, the secret lives of color tell the vivid story of our culture.
“This passionate and majestic compedium will leave you bathed in the gorgeous optics of light.” —Elle

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    September 1, 2020

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593340387
      • File size: 233307 KB
      • Duration: 08:06:03

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      June 19, 2017
      London-based writer St. Clair delivers a mix of science, humor, and art history in this collection of bite-size essays on the cultural and social lore of colors based on her column in British Elle Decoration. The author arranges her color commentary in blocks: color entries start with white and end with black; in between, St. Clair tells the stories of colors unglamorous (umber) and obscure (gamboge) with those that kill (orpiment pigment is around 60% arsenic) or change (verdigris is the green patina that results when copper is exposed to air). She explores etymologies (buff from buffalo) and sprinkles wit (taupe, French for mole, is “browner than a mole had a right to be”) throughout the collection. Her sentences guarantee sustained reading: “Balthasar Gérard was the Lee Harvey Oswald of his day”; the word heliotrope fills “the mouth like a rich, buttery sauce.” St. Clair’s rhetoric beautifies the form of the brief essay.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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