Colours: A First Art Book

An inspiring picture book for the very young that explores the concept of colours through art. Micklethwait’s choice of paintings is as always surprising and refreshingly original, aimed at catching a child’s attention and hopefully whetting the appetite for more. The blue sky of Van Gogh’s painting, Vincent’s House at Arles, appears opposite the blue sea of a Hiroshige woodcut, while yellow is illustrated with Monet’s yellow sunflowers, brown with Dürer’s watercolour of an owl. Botticelli, Peter Blake and Paolozzi are among the 18 artists included here, but there are also less familiar examples from around the world. The production is simplicity itself, with no more than a handful of words on a page – ‘orange oranges’ … ‘green grapes’ – and at the end a listing of all the paintings. One wishes that the publisher could have found room for an introduction from the articulate author whose earlier books (‘I-Spy’ series, A Child’s Book of Art) amply demonstrate her belief that it is never too early to introduce children to art.