Colour

Colour tells the remarkable story of Victoria Finlay's quest to uncover the many secrets hidden inside the paintbox. On her travels she visited remote Central American villages where women still wear skirts dyed with the purple tears of sea snails; learned how George Washington obsessed about his green dining room while he should have been busy with matters of state, and investigated the mystery of Indian Yellow paint, said to have been made from the urine of Indian cows force-fed with mango leaves. From mascara to violin varnish, from nomadic carpets to stained glass to pillar boxes to crayons, the story of colour is the story of the efforts of artists and artisans to reproduce the rainbow - and the impact their work has had on the world.