Author reveals the history and mystery behind paint colors in art.

By Holly O’Dell

In her new book, The Brilliant History of Color in Art, British author and anthropologist Victoria Finlay explores the origins of paint colors — and the lore, science and secrets behind them. As part of her research, she spent a month among the art collections and archives of J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, wandering the galleries with a large magnifying glass to view her subjects up close.

“You see the brushstrokes, you see how the artists created their effects, and you think, ‘How on earth did they do that?’” Finlay says. “It’s the magic of painting, the magic of the illusion they’re creating and how they accomplished it.” Here are a few of the magical color moments Finlay reveals in her book:

Color and light — a love/hate relationship

Interior designers rely on the interplay of color and light in their projects, and they can thank their prehistoric ancestors for first capturing that effect. In 1940, four boys in France discovered a limestone cavern adorned with brilliant, realistic paintings of animals — including a 17-foot-long bull — that dated back 17,000 years. The artwork housed in what became known as the Lascaux Caves prominently featured red, yellow, white and brown, along with a form of black containing a rare manganese oxide. Though shrouded in darkness for all those millennia, the paintings employed varied hues, shades and depths to create “the impression of sunlight dappling onto the backs of living creatures,” Finlay says.

Unfortunately, light also spelled the downfall of the vivid colors. By the late 1960s, the paintings were all but invisible, due to the effects of electric and natural lighting to accommodate some 400,000 annual visitors. Today, governments and heritage groups are protecting these ancient harbingers of color in art as they continue to be discovered around the world.

Uncovering a mystery

One of Finlay’s favorite discoveries in her research was learning the true story of the iconic 1770 painting The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough. Until recently, historians believed that the piece depicted an 18-year-old boy whose wealthy father commissioned the portrait. The subject instead is Gainsborough’s 14- or 15-year-old nephew dressed in costume to prove a point about color, after the artist’s rival said that blue should never be used in the center of a painting because “viewers wouldn’t be clear about what was the front and what was the back,” Finley says.

What’s more, an X-ray of The Blue Boy taken in 1995 revealed an image of the Gainsborough family’s water spaniel, indicating that the artist had painted over previous work. Says Finlay: “He was just doing a riff, which is why he painted on a canvas that had already been used before, and it became one of the most famous paintings in the world.”

Art’s influence on interior design

Prior to the 14th century, home decor in wealthy homes typically included tapestries adorned with almost whimsical medieval imagery: dragons and unicorns, knights and maidens. But a new class of super-rich started to form in Europe. “They wanted something more: a portrait or two, a painted battle or a naughty scene from mythology,” Finlay says. Paint had arrived in interior design. By the 1950s and ’60s, painted art wasn’t just appearing in homes; it was influencing their design. The bright, cheery colors that appeared in the works of pop artist Roy Lichtenstein and his contemporaries showed up on lamps, cabinetry, tiles and, of course, painted walls.