For centuries, the study of color traveled across civilizations, from ancient dye masters in India, Persia, China to groundbreaking optical science in the Islamic Golden Age, to Renaissance Europe, and finally incorporated into modern color systems. What we now call “color analysis” is based on thousands of years of work on light, vision, pigments, textiles, and art. This is the story of how color knowledge and optics moved from East to West and shaped the way we understand p

Out of the Samanid dynasty, came the Ghaznavids, whose warriors forged the first great Islamic empire from Ghazni (Afghanistan) that...