Colour: Travels Through The Paintbox
by Victoria Finlay
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A young Englishwoman flew into Afghanistan last year, wrapped her face in a scarf and set out in a Russian jeep for the mountains north-east of Kabul. When the jeep broke down, she travelled the last 40km up steep, rocky roads on donkey and foot, despite dysentery and a flapping boot heel. She was just one of many intrepid foreigners in Afghanistan as the Taleban hold on the country began to crumble. But this woman was on a unique mission.
Victoria Finlay brushed aside danger to visit the lapis lazuli mines at Sar-e-Sang, the world's main source of the deep blue stone and the expensive ultramarine pigment valued by artists since ancient Egypt's tomb decorators.
Fascinated by a Michelangelo painting that was left unfinished because the artist could not afford ultramarine paint, Finlay doggedly followed the colour to the inaccessible blue-flecked rocks. She was believed to be the only woman ever to go there, much to the miners' excitement. Her curiosity also took her to the giant Bamiyan buddhas, months before they were notoriously destroyed by the Taleban. The ultramarine frescos around their heads, painted about 1,400 years ago, were the earliest recorded use of lapis lazuli.