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MORE THAN IN THE BEHOLDER'S EYE tics, color theory, degradation of colored BRIGHT EARTH: ART AND THE materials, color reproduction, color phoINVENTION OF COLOR, by Philip Ball, tography, and the rise of paint and its apFarrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002,382pages, pealing characteristics even divorced from $30 (ISBN0-374-11679-2) color. Finally, in a dizzying crescendo of thoughts on modern and contemporary art, Ball almost joins the Luddite critics REVIEWED BY BARBARA H. BERRIE who rail that today's artists no longer have any artistic ability, but he backs off at the OLOR, THEY SAY, DOESN'T EXIST. It is only an effect produced in last moment. the brain after some cells in the Along the way, Ball gives biographies of eye have undergone a photo- pigments. He draws liberally and chemical reaction; and some- expertlyfromthe work ofa small times color is "perceived" even without that cadre of scientists who investistimulus. So it is fascinating that we humans gate artists' materials by analyzspend time and money, in large amounts, ing the pigments found in art— on materials solely for their color. from cave paintings, easel Chemists, too, have devoted consider- paintings, drawings, and other able research, both fundamental and ap- sources. Ball depends especially plied, to compounds solely on account of on the work ofresearchers at the their color. To realize this, one need only re- Tate and the National Gallery call the experiments on why chlorophyll is London. He skillfully covers the green or the drive of industrial chemists to spectrum and the palette, telling find brightly colored dyes. In the 18th cen- of the invention of many pigments, how tury, as chemists isolated many elements for they were used by artists, and describing the the first time and synthesized many new colorants'foibles,often with anecdotes. Ball colored compounds from them, they also follows with a chapter on how time changes the color of pigments, often because of gaveriseto a burgeoning artists' palette. In "Bright Earth: Art and the Invention chemical instability of individual pigments of Color," British science writer Philip Ball or chemical reaction between them, and takes on the challenge of explaining color and the allure of colored objects using examples from the fine arts. He investigates the history of color and the interrelationships among societal culture, science, technology, and art that have a nexus in color. Ball specializes in topics that relate to chemistry. His recent books include "Life's Matrix: ABiography of Water" (C&EN, Aug. 28,2000, page 36) and "Stories of the Invisible: A Guided Tour of Molecules" (see the review on page 48). He begins "Bright Earth" with a chapter on the phenomena ofcolor. I found this a ponderous beginning, reading like a dictionary of quotes, each coupled with its author and his profession. Ball seems to be struggling to come to terms with the relationship between the sciences and arts, or perhaps between scientists and artists. But soon he settles down in a more comfortable style and takes readers on a romp through op-
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presents a sober account of art restoration. The breadth of topics Ball covers in this book is both a strength and a weakness. He whets readers' appetites, yet is apt to leave them wanting to delve deeper into almost every subject. Although this book has plenty of chemical terminology, for example, it does not include much about the chemistry of pigment manufacture, modern or ancient. Consider the case of mosaic gold. As Ball explains, tin(IV) sulfide was first used by medieval miniaturists and manuscript illuminators as a substitute for gold, but its properties when mixed with a binding medium such as gum arabic or a drying oil made it valuable in its ownrightand not just as a simulacrum for the real thing. Paint madefromrealgold,called shell gold, is difficult to manipulate and cannot easily be used to apply highlights or lines. Ball discusses the mention of recipes for mosaic gold in Western medieval manuals on painting and alchemical texts, but he does not note that this compound is also described in Chinese alchemical texts as early as A.D. 300.The chemistries used in Europe and China to synthesize this pigment were entirely different, giving an important insight into the origins ofchemistry in the two cultures. Oddly even though alchemists thought that mercury was a necessary ingredient to transform base materials to gold, it is not required for the production of tin(IV) sulfide in the old recipes. In the preface to "Bright Earth," Ball shows how words can evoke images of color, and the book relies on this ability It includes few illustrations orfigures—eithercolor or black and white—and the ones it has are collected into three signatures, rather than placed where theywould illuminate Ball's points. Charles Blanc, who in the mid-19th century wrote a textbook on color theory for artists (based on the brilliant chemist Michel-Eugène Chevreul's famous work), noted that when artists paint with "extreme magnificence," they add some white or black "to rest the eye, to refresh it." A few pictures strewn among Ball's text would have done the same for the mind's eye here.The lavishly and beautifully illustrated book by François Delamare and Bernard Guineau, "Colors: The Story of Dyes and Pigments," published in 2000, covers material similar to the mid-
Color... doesn't exist. It is only an effect produced in the brain after some cells in the eye have undergone a photochemical reaction.
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BOOKS die chapters of Ball's book. It delights both mind and eye and would be a nice complement to this book. "Bright Earth" is replete with facts woven together and told in a way that seems genuinely designed to inform. The endnotes for each chapter are a useful addi-
tion, and the bibliography will be used by some, although many of the references are to texts and proceedings of meetings that might be difficult to obtain. In some ways, "Bright Earth" resembles the painters' books of secrets that Ball describes, full of knowledge and arcana. Like
THE RIGHT CHEMISTRY STORIES OF THE INVISIBLE: A GUIDED TOUR OF MOLECULES, by
Philip Ball, Oxford University Press, 2001, 204pages, $22 JO (ISBN 0-19-280214-3) REVIEWED BY RONALD BRESLOW
A A j 0 ^ ^
TORIES OF THE INVISIBLE"
^ "^ is a wonderful book! In 204 ^ ^ ^ ^ pages, Philip Ball points J out that chemistry is over^ ^ ^ ^ whelmingly the science of molecules, not of atoms, and that it is mainly concerned with the interactions among molecules. Frankly, the book starts off slowly, with a somewhat precious quoting of passages from a humorous Irish novel, "The Dalkey Archive," in which the properties of "Mollycules" are discussed. That almost did me in. However, Ball, a British science writer who has written several books on chemically related topics for a general audience, soon gets into his rhythm, and the book becomes very entertaining, impressive, and educational. The chapter "Engineers of the Invisible: Making Molecules" begins by teaching the reader what molecules are and how they are found in nature and made by chemists. Ball describes the early years of "shake and bake" synthesis and the progression to the design of molecules and their rational syntheses. Much ofthe book is concerned with the chemistry of living systems, which is introduced in the next chapter, "Molecules of Life." Examples of relevant synthetic chemistry make it clear that chemists are not just exploring and admiring natural chemistry but are extending it. This point becomes even clearer in "Take the Strain: Materials from Molecules." This chapter moves back and forth between biological materials, such as collagen, and synthetic polymers and nanotubes. "The Burning Issue: Molecules and Energy" leads with the chemistry of combustion, moves to the molecular chemistry of biological energy formation and use— including photosynthesis—and ends with 48
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synthetic explosives. It even describes tetranitrocubane, the explosive with the highest predicted energy density Richard R Feynman's famous lecture given in 1959, in which the California Institute of Technology physics professor called on scientists to build nanoscale machines, introduces "Good Little Movers: Molecular Motors." Ball then describes biological motors and how they work, optical tweezers and atomic force microscopes, and the current state ofprogress toward molecular motors, including the recent work aimed at mimicking biological motors by organic chemists Ben Feringa andT. Ross Kell of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and Boston College, respectively "Delivering the Message: Molecular Communication" starts with how hormones deliver biological messages and the role of neurotransmitters and ends with supramolecular chemistry of synthetic molecules. The final chapter, "The Chemical Computer: Molecular Information," focuses at first on genetic information and its molecular basis, then moves to synthetic molecular logic gates and approaches to nanoscale molecular computers. The book is filled with humor and with wonderful similes and metaphors to put chemical ideas into familiar context. To explain how difficult it is to make smaller and smaller electronic circuits by carving up silicon chips, Ball compares the task to trying to split human hairs with a bread knife. Or consider this passage: "{I}t is metabolism and not replication that provides the best working definition of life. Evolutionary biologists would say that we exist in order to reproduce—but we are not, even the most amorous of us, trying to reproduce all the time. lfet, if we stop metabolizing, even for a minute or two, we are done for." At one point, Ball writes that marine organisms that use hemocyanin as their oxygen-carrying molecule are "the true blue-bloods of the ocean."
those early works, this one will delight readers and be valued by them for its breadth of coverage of this rarely explored material. Inorganic chemist Barbara H. Berr'ie is asenior conservation scientist at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Ball also offers some important philosophical insights. In discussing biomimetic chemistry, for instance, he points out that just as "the jumbo jet is not a scaled up pigeon, so the wise molecular engineer takes from nature principles but not blueprints." The book conveys a lot of detailed information in chemistry, molecular biology, and cell biology that will be of interest to most scientists. It has 4 0 excellent illustrations, unfortunately all in black and white. However, the resulting low cost of book production has led to quite a reasonable price. "Stories of the Invisible" includes many literary references, some of which will not be familiar to all readers. The phrase "pig's trotters," for example, is likely only to be familiar to British readers. And the description of hormone receptors as "butlers at the cell surface," greeting visitors and allowing some of them to enter, conjures up an upper-class British lifestyle most readers are not likely to have experienced. Some simplifications are not quite correct: It is not only entropy that determines the positions of equilibria, as Ball states at one point. This book deserves wide distribution. It is a quick and enjoyable read; I did it in part of a trans-Atlantic flight. I hope chemists will read it and give it to their families, as it will be interesting to both scientists and nonscientists. We should also get it into the hands of our biology and physics colleagues to give them a sense of the importance and future potential of our science. I hope to see this book in bookstores, especially bookstores affiliated with science museums, where books on chemistry are often woefully absent. Chemistry is the central, useful, and creative science; we cannot afford for it to be the invisible science. Columbia University chemistryprofessor Ronald Breslow is the author of "Chemistry Today and Tomorrow: The Central, Useful, and Creative Science" (1997), a book aimed at communicating the importance of chemistry to nonchemists. HTTP://PUBS.ACS.ORG/CEN
