• '

  [an] excellent and protean biography of a colour . . . the book follows a red thread through human history, whose twin strands are material extraction the animal, vegetable and mineral lives of red and the extraction of meanings from redness itself . . . Red summarises the search for redness, condensing a vast field of inquiry into a lucid narrative . . . Bucklows book restores many lost meanings. Starting from materials, from colour speaking through matter, it ends as a poetics of red: charting the deeds and sufferings of a light that has passed through darkness through the veil of matter to reach us and become visible in the form of a red sky at night.

  '

  The Spectator

• '

  Written by a research scientist but with the flair of a biographer, Spike Bucklow’s Red: The Art and Science of a Colour charts the many sources, uses and meanings of the colour red through history . . . In his episodic history of red, Bucklow ably explains the many different facets of this ubiquitous but temperamental colour. Part historical epic, part scientific treatise, part social history, Red introduces us to humankind’s enduring quest to find meaning in the materials and the colours around us.

  '

  Burlington Magazine

• '

  an examination of the various origins of the colour animals, vegetables, minerals and synthetics and an exercise in cultural history that follows the red thread through Western and Eastern societies. [Bucklow] starts in ancient Iraq and Egypt, cultures that prized red cosmetics as necessary in the journey to the afterworld, goes to the Middle Ages and prized red hair such as that of Queen Elizabeth I, the 1940s in which red signified patriotism and the scarlet lady to whom loose lips divulged secrets, to present day talk of red alerts.

  '

  Sydney Morning Herald

• '

  The many reds that we employ and enjoy come from some strange places: from dark brown earth and from black coal tar, from the bellies of tiny insects and from the resins of certain trees, from mythical dragonsblood and from excitable gases. Part material history, part cultural inquiry, Spike Bucklows &#64257ne book traces the origins and applications of the reds that have surrounded us since humans &#64257rst sought to apply the colour to their habitats and their bodies. Above all it reminds us that red is never a simple matter. Red is mysterious and it is fugitive: often dif&#64257cult to make and to make fast, it is equally slippery in the human imagination. From red mists to red herrings by way of red lines and red rags, it is perhaps the most unquiet and unsettling colour of all.

  '

  David Batchelor

Introduction

One

Animal Reds

Two

Eastern Trees

Three

Fruits of the Earth

Four

Mysterious Reds

Five

Reds for a Better Life

Six

Brave New Reds

Seven

Crossing the Red Line

Eight

Red Meanings

Nine

Red Earth

Ten

Red Blood

Eleven

Red Fire

Twelve

Red Passions

References

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Photo Acknowledgements

Index

Spike Bucklow is Professor of Material Culture and Conservation Scientist at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge. He is the author of numerous books on artists’ materials and methods, including The Anatomy of Riches: Sir Robert Paston’s Treasure (Reaktion, 2018).