In the national arts library at the Victoria and Albert Museum I read how the cobalt quality varied throughout the Ming dynasty. The finest blue was in the mid-fifteenth century Xuande reign, while under the emperors Zhenge and Jiajing a hundred years later, porcelain-makers were using an excellent violet glaze. Meanwhile—and bear with me on the dates here—the “blue and white” from the Chenghua (late fifteenth) and Wanli (late sixteenth) reigns was virtually “gray and white,” after those emperors imposed trade sanctions against Central Asia. With the details scribbled down in my notebook I went down, with some excitement, to the Chinese gallery and tested it out. To my delight I could now tell immediately, by color alone and from a distance, when a Ming vase was probably fired. The possibilities for pretentious expertise were endless.

When I write reviews of non-fiction, I tend to excerpt the facts and strip them of their commentary. Unless the point I am reinforcing is authorial presence in the narrative or something similar. The dry banter throughout Color adds an immense value, and the above illustrates how a likable author can carry the reader through any subject. The minutia is interesting but partially irrelevant [note from 2022, I cannot believe I called it “irrelevant” when it has been my most-cited concept over the last eight years!!]; what is most fascinating is the basic concept that color and creation can be tied to history through physical production.

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