Experiencing Joy Through Art

   Hello! It’s nice to be back with another blog post. I hope you have been well and that your February month is coming along nicely. To my all my friends and readers on the east coast…I hope you are managing to stay warm and upbeat despite the terrible winter! Spring is just around the corner so hang tight.

   I recently found and purchased a couple of interesting books from Amazon about color, pigments and their place in art and history. I find subjects such as these fascinating and exciting. I have often said that my love for creating art is almost equaled by my fascination with art materials, their history and the science behind their manufacture.

   The three books I purchased are shown below. One hasn’t arrived yet, but the other two came yesterday. I have begun reading Bright Earth by Philip Ball and although I’m only a few pages into the first chapter I am already engrossed and can't wait to read more! I will post a more thorough book review in the future, but right now I am in the midst of watching the story unfold and the fun and joy that accompanies that. The book is about the general history of pigments and the science behind them as well as how art was influenced by the color available during different periods in art history. Art had the ability to expand in never-before-thought-of directions once the chemical technology was there to make it possible.

   The second and third books are about the history of specific colors. Mauve by Simon Garfield is about the discovery of the purple dye…one of the first synthetic dyes made in history and how it influenced fashion and design in the early to mid 19th Century. The Rarest Blue by Baruch Sterman discusses the history of Tyrian Blue (aka Tekhelet), a color made from mollusks and how this lost and forgotten blue of ancient Phoenicia and Rome came to be rediscovered in modern times. 

  I love books like this, so I will be sure to keep you posted on my final thoughts once I’m finished reading them!