What remains of the colours of our childhood? What are our\nmemories of a blue rabbit, a red dress, a yellow bike? Were they\nreally those colours? And later on, what colours do we associate\nwith our student years, our first loves, our adult life? How does\ncolour leave its mark on memory? How does it stimulate memory? How\ndoes it transform it? Or, to reverse that question, how does colour\nbecome the victim of memory′s whims and lapses? In an attempt to\nreply to these questions - and to many others - Michel Pastoureau\npresents us with a journal about colours that covers over half a\ncentury (1950-2010). Through personal memories, notes taken on the\nspot, uninhibited comments, scholarly digressions and the remarks\nof a professional historian, this book retraces the recent history\nof colours in France and Europe. Among the fields of observation\nthat are covered or evoked are the vocabulary and data of language,\nfashion and clothing, everyday objects and practices, emblems and\nflags, sport, literature, painting, museums and the history of art.\nThis text - playful, poetic, nostalgic - records the life of both\nthe author and his contemporaries. We live in a world increasingly\nbursting with colour, in which colour remains a focus for memory, a\nsource of delight and, most of all, an invitation to dream.

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