Chromorama: How Colour Changed Our Way of Seeing

by Riccardo Falcinelli

Genres: Nonfiction

480 pages, Paperback

Published December 9, 2025

About the author

Riccardo Falcinelli è uno dei piú apprezzati visual designer sulla scena della grafica italiana, che ha contribuito a innovare progettando libri e collane per diversi editori. Insegna Psicologia della percezione presso la facoltà di Design ISIA di Roma.

Reviews

[ANTHONY CUTLER · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's all here: physics, chemistry, art, design, commerce, law, literature, anthropology, society, fashion ... . What's not to like? This is a splendid survey of what we understand by "colour" that will challenge lazy ways of thinking picked up in schooldays. It's all here, from Walter Benjamin to Meryl Streep's imperious speech about cerulean in The Devil Wears Prada.

Having spent my adult years visiting the great art galleries of the world, Prado, Uffizi, Met, National Gallery (London), Kunsthistorisches, Rijksmuseum ... , I'm going to have to go back to them all with a fresh appreciation of what colour actually is and what it does.

Definite congratulations here to Simon Carnell and Erica Segre for this elegant translation from the Italian. That made the book a pleasure to read.

I think the only thing absent was the use, and misuse, of colour in data analysis and the work of people like Cynthia Brewer on map colour schemes. However, that's not even a quibble for a book so excellent in its scope and cogency.

[Maeve Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

So interesting!