There aren’t a lot of books out there that can completely change the way one looks at things, literally looks at things, the way this one can. A history of pigment and paint, an art history viewed through the lens of the material substance of color, Bright Earth is like a drug you’ll keep dosing yourself on for years to come. I take it every few months, like vitamins, especially whenever I’ve got a gallery visit or a date with an artist friend in the offing.

But it’s not just art that you’ll see differently after reading this book. Everything in the world, man-made and natural, has color, and the physics of color, the chemistry of color, as presented in this book are unforgettable.

There’s a scene in one of the early seasons of Six Feet Under in which the daughter Claire holds a tube of ultramarine and absolutely trips out about how it’s made of something from the earth that is this color (now that I’ve read all about it, I know it’s ground-up lapis lazuli, the same rock in my earrings!). This book is like that experience.

Brilliant! Literally!