Norma Clarke at Literary Review:
Michel Pastoureau began his wonderful and widely translated series on the history of colours with Blue a quarter of a century ago. Black, Green, Red, Yellow and White followed and now here is a history of pink, which may not be ‘a color in its own right’ and for which neither Latin nor ancient Greek has a standard word (it was long regarded as a shade of red). Nevertheless, Pink is as sumptuous as its predecessors, printed on gorgeous glossy paper and written with impassioned scholarship.
When Isaac Newton broke white light down into coloured rays in 1666, he did not find pink. Orange and purple were there, along with red, yellow, green and blue, so for scientists those were the true colours. Yet pink was observable in nature – in plants, on the feathers of animals, in minerals and in the sky. Pink had begun to appear in dyes and paints in the 14th century – relatively late compared to other colours – and it rapidly became fashionable. A unique document, Prammatica del vestire, has survived to tell us about the wardrobes of all women of the wealthy classes living in Florence between 1343 and 1345.
more here.
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