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Victoria Finlay

Author of Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox

5+ Works 2,835 Members 47 Reviews 2 Favorited

About the Author

Includes the name: Victoria Finlay

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Works by Victoria Finlay

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art (319) art history (121) chemistry (14) color (278) color history (13) color theory (29) colors (29) cultural history (33) culture (9) design (15) dyeing (10) dyes (23) ebook (16) Folio (10) Folio Society (75) gems (17) gemstones (16) geology (16) history (305) jewelry (24) jewels (20) Kindle (13) microhistory (15) natural history (15) NF (8) non-fiction (314) paint (18) painting (50) pigment (18) pigments (44) read (20) reference (18) science (81) social history (13) textiles (14) to-read (198) travel (113) travelogue (9) unread (19) wishlist (15)

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Reviews

interesting but not compelling at all, I had to remind myself to pick it up
 
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jskeltz | 27 other reviews | Nov 23, 2023 |
Lots of detail and worthwhile but I liked Secret Lives of Color a little better.
 
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kslade | 27 other reviews | Dec 8, 2022 |
I thought this would be a book about the history of jewels. Instead, I got a travelogue with heavy, heavy religious overtones and a specific worldview. Back to Aja Raden it is.
 
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iszevthere | 11 other reviews | Jun 20, 2022 |
To research the history of color is brilliant like a box of sixty-four. Who, for example, has thought about from where ochre originated? According to Finlay, ochre is the first color(s) of paint. I did not know that and to be totally honest, nor have I ever thought about ochre in this way. [My only thoughts in ochre were to be confused about what shade of yellow, red, or brown it is supposed to be.] Did you ever wonder what the HB on a pencil meant? Hardness and blackness. How about the origin of the phrase, "cut through all this red tape"? Who knew? Apparently, Finlay. That's who. She took the time to travel the globe looking for answers about color: Australia for ochre, England for black and brown, China for white, Chile for red, Italy for orange, India for yellow,...I wanted to make a map of all her travels. On the heels of reading Travels in a Thin Country I couldn't stop comparing Sara Wheeler's adventure to that of Victoria Finlay.
There is a fair amount of humor in Color. To see what I mean, find the section where Finlay describes the interesting practice of boiling cow urine after the bovine have been fed a steady diet of mango leaves for two weeks straight.
… (more)
 
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SeriousGrace | 27 other reviews | May 4, 2022 |

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Statistics

Works
5
Also by
1
Members
2,835
Popularity
#9,047
Rating
3.9
Reviews
47
ISBNs
43
Languages
4
Favorited
2
Touchstones
98

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