Chromorama (Penguin Books)

Have you ever wondered why so many pencils are yellow? Why black is the colour of mourning? Or why exactly the Virgin Mary is dressed in blue? In Chromorama, acclaimed graphic designer Riccardo Falcinelli delves deep into the history of colour to show how it has shaped the modern gaze. With over four hundred illustrations throughout and with examples ranging widely across art and culture - from the novels of Gustave Flaubert to The Simpsons, from Byzantine jewellery to misshapen fruit, from Mondrian to Hitchcock's thrillers - Falcinelli traces the evolution of our long relationship with colour, and how first the industrial revolution, and then the dawn of the internet age, changed it forever. Beautifully designed, deeply researched, and written with warmth and wit, Chromoroma is an engrossing account of shade and light, of tone and hue, of dyes, pigments, and pixels. It is the story of why we now see the world the way we do.