Colours Of The Indus

Distributed for Merrell Holberton, Exhibition catalogue, Published in association with Victoria & Albert Museum.

Collection of newspaper columns and articles written between 1999 and 2009, many originally published in the Weekly Pakistan Post (New York).

With 600 signed, alphabetically organized articles covering the entirety of folklore in South Asia, this new resource includes countries and regions, ethnic groups, religious concepts and practices, artistic genres, holidays and traditions, and many other concepts. A preface introduces the material, while a comprehensive index, cross-references, and black and white illustrations round out the work. The focus on south Asia includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, with short survey articles on Tibet, Bhutan, Sikkim, and various diaspora communities. This unique reference will be invaluable for collections serving students, scholars, and the general public.

A beautifully illustrated history of the many inventive, poetic, and alluring ways in which color swatches have been selected and staged The need to categorize and communicate color has mobilized practitioners and scholars for centuries. Color Charts describes the many different methods and ingenious devices developed since the fifteenth century by doctors, naturalists, dyers, and painters to catalog fragments of colors. With the advent of industrial society, manufacturers and merchants developed some of the most beautiful and varied tools ever designed to present all the available colors. Thanks to them, society has discovered the abundance of color embodied in a plethora of materials: cuts of fabric, leather, paper, and rubber; slats of wood and linoleum; delicate skeins of silk; careful deposits of paint and pastels; fragments of lipstick; and arrangements of flower petals. These samples shape a visual culture and a chromatic vocabulary and instill a deep desire for color. Anne Varichon traces the emergence of modern color charts from a set of processes developed over the centuries in various contexts. She presents illuminating examples that bring this remarkable story to life, from ancient writings revealing attention to precise shade to contemporary designers’ color charts, dyers’ notebooks, and Werner’s famous color nomenclature. Varichon argues that color charts have linked generations of artists, artisans, scientists, industrialists, and merchants, and have played an essential and enduring role in the way societies think about color. Drawing on nearly two hundred documents from public and private collections, almost all of them previously unpublished, this wonderfully illustrated book shows how the color chart, in its many distinct forms and expressions, is a practical tool that has transcended its original purpose to become an educational aid and subject of contemplation worthy of being studied and admired.

Updated to 2020, BOOKS ON COLOUR 1495-2015 offers quick and easy reference to 2,500 authors and editors and over 3,000 titles published by them. Following a concise historical survey of colour literature, authors are listed in an A-Z directory, together with titles, dates and places of publication, and translations for non-English titles. Biographical references are included where known. Chronological indexes of authors precede the bibliographical listing and alphabetical indexes of authors follow it. Publications are categorised under 27 general headings: Architecture, Chemistry, Classification, Colorants, Computing & Television, Decoration, Design, Dress & Cosmetics, Dyeing, Flora & Fauna, Food, Glass, History, Lighting, Metrology, Music, Optics, Painting, Perception, Philosophy, Photography & Cinema, Printing, Psychology, Symbolism, Terminology, Therapy, and Vision.