Victoria Finlay Essay

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Victoria Finlay

Color for artists is the most important tool for their artwork in expressing beauty. The chapters “White” and “The Paintbox”, from Victoria Finlay’s book “Color”, presents more similarities than the differences. The similarities are more clearly seen in both chapters because she is trying to present the same idea about how important is the color for artists and how they are trying to discover the most perfect techniques in using the color for their paintings. In the chapter on “White”, Victoria Finlay is presenting a history of the lead white which is a white pigment used not only by the masters of the color in their paints, but it was also used as a white base for cosmetics. The author evidence in supporting her ideas is by narrating stories. The entire chapter is full of different stories about how the white pigment was discovered and what ingredients have been used to made it, stories about people’s adventures and their sacrifices in their journey to learn more about the pigments. Similar with chapter “White” is her chapter “The Paintbox”. Victoria Finlay discusses the importance of the color in the art world from the late medieval period to the present, and the people behind the paintings and their most secret techniques. However, the only difference between these two chapters is how she organized the material. She drives the reader from the beginning to the end through one coherent story. Finlay did not divided the chapter “The Paintbox” in multiple stories as she did in her chapter “White”, but she kept the material in one compact story. Another similarity between these two chapters is the topic Victoria Finlay discusses. She emphasizes in both texts how important is for the artists the using of the right color on their palette. Many techniques used by the masters of paintings to prepare their color pigments are very
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