Synopsis Paint and colour are as old as man himself. Over 35000 years ago, in seeking refuge from the weather and marauding beasts, man lived in caves. With the aid of naturally occurring materials, such as clays and chalks, and using animal fats as binders, he decorated his cave walls with drawings of animals and his fellow man.

The Egyptians in about 2500 BC were still using the same pigments except that a clear blue had been added to relieve the earth colours. This blue is thought to have been derived by finely powdering azurite, a semiprecious stone, while the animal fat medium had given way to gums, wax, size, and perhaps albumen. Painters still recorded in tombs and temples, the happenings of the day, the battles, the pharaoh's eye, the priestly rites.

This book, is intended for students in paint courses, technologists, scientists and research scholars associated with surface coating industries and for new employees in the oil, resin, pigment and paint industries.