From then until 1939, while living partly in France and partly in Egypt, saw several of his books published. In 1940, being in Egypt and considering his career as a writer to be finished, he turned to painting for research into composition of light, which he expressed by using turquoise blue and rose mauve as the basic colors of his palette. It took him fifteen years of intense work to master his new technique. During this period he wrote his essay on painting "L'Hyperbole Chromatique" (the Chromatic Hyperbola), was published in 1957 and translated into English soon after.