Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color

A fascinating study of the evolution of color in art and science from antiquity to the present.

For art in the twentieth century, medium is the message. Many artists offer works defined by their materials. In no aspect is this more strikingly demonstrated than in the use of color.

Bright Earth is the story of how color evolved and was produced for artistic and commercial use. The modern chemical industry was spawned and nurtured largely by the demand for color as many of today's major chemical companies began as manufacturers of aniline dye; advances in synthetic chemistry, both organic and inorganic, were stimulated in the nineteenth century by the quest for artificial colors. The future holds still more challenges for the color chemist, not only to provide new coloring materials, but also to replace old ones that will shortly become extinct, as concerns about the use of lead and cadmium pigments increase.

In Bright Earth, Philip Ball brings together the themes of art and science to show that chemical technology and the use of color in art have always existed in a symbiotic relationship that has shaped both their courses throughout history. By tracing their co-evolution, Ball reveals how art is more of a science, and science more of an art, than is commonly appreciated on either side of the fence.

Philip Ball majored in chemistry at the University of Oxford and received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Bristol. He worked for ten years as an editor at Nature, and is the author, most recently, of Life's Matrix: A Biography of Water. He lives i+n London.