Chromorama: How Colour Changed Our Way of Seeing

by Riccardo Falcinelli

Genres: Nonfiction, Art, History

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

[Ava Rossides · Rating 5 out of 5]

5+++/5
This book was so incredible I put off writing a review because I felt I couldn’t do it justice. And I can’t! so I won’t try to capture it all.
This book is about color, but color is.. everything. Color is consumerism, and anthropology, and class, and food, and neurobiology, and and and.
Need the physical copy for the incredible visual aids (what’s a book about color without visuals). There was not a single chapter that did not in some way blow my mind.

[Pj Escobio · Rating 5 out of 5]

I‘ve always been sensitive to color. This now helps me understand why. The historical, practical, creative and scientific use of color is all examined in this engaging and quite enlightening read.

[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.

[Mirjam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastische vondst in een boekhandel in een buitenwijk van Rome. Allerlei onderwerpen komen langs, allemaal te maken met kleur. Erg interessant en ook qua opmaak heerlijk kleurrijk. Deze gaat mijn boekenkast in ter herinnering aan een fijne vakantie en aan een boeiende leeservaring over kleuren.

[Maeve Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

So interesting!

[Elisa Nolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fav Book of the year for me. Highly recommended. It’s got it all. Wonderful writing, philosophy, science, fun. 10/10