March of the Pigments

Paleolithic Cave Art is well-written, covered thoroughly, and a pleasure to read. I found the whole chapter to be full of interesting and fascinating information.

Very few if any books, however, discuss color and pigments in a unified way, placing pigments in a cultural context and examining their materiality. Mary Virginia Orna’s March of the Pigments goes a long way towards filling that gap. This pedagogically versatile book consists of sixteen thorough, accessible and extensively researched chapters. They take the reader from the deep unrecorded past, through successive periods of history to the present, and even offer a glimpse of future pigment technology.

An important feature of the book is its versatility as a potential source of reading material for courses at various levels, ranging from the undergraduate chemistry curriculum to special topics in cultural heritage science. Each chapter can be read and appreciated independently of the others.

The wealth and appropriate contextualization of factual information and the extensive list of references make this book an indispensable resource for both educators and researchers.

* http://acshist.scs.illinois.edu/bulletin/bull22-vol47-3.php *

I loved the mix of exploring ancient pigments and then utilizing modern techniques to unravel the puzzles. I really liked how you wove into the fabric of the text, your experiences and analyses. That made me as a reader feel that the author knows first-hand what she is writing about.