Here are the facts: Amazon USA’s most popular title right now is Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford’s book of intricately drawn pictures of flora and fauna for adults to colour in. For Amazon UK, the eponymous Art Therapy Colouring Book is among the top five bestsellers. In France, colouring books for adults are outselling cookery titles. And popular South Korean pop star and actor Kim Kibum has posted images of these books for his millions of admiring Instagram followers. Why is this happening?
Is it the continuing infantilisation of 21st century adults, a lapse lower even than” adultescence” as the phenomenon of grown-ups dressing and behaving like adolescents has been called? We tend to think not. Hominids are a creative species and the urge to draw, paint, sculpt and throw pots is a form of mindfulness as even our earliest ancestors knew. In our increasingly digital world, it is also a way of finding something analogue with which to unplug.
