The History of Color

A Universe of Chromatic Phenomena

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Pub Date 26 Sep 2023 | Archive Date 18 Jul 2023

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Description

This comprehensive, beautiful book delves deep into the complex but fascinating story of our relationship with color throughout human history.

Color is fundamental to our experience and understanding of the world. It crosses continents and cultures, disciplines and decades. It is used to convey information and knowledge, to evoke mood, and to inspire emotion.

This book explores the history of our understanding of color, from the ancient world to the present, from Aristotle to Albers. Interspersed in the historical story are numerous thematic essays that look at how color has been used across a wide range of disciplines and fields: in food, music, language and many others.  

The illustrations are drawn from the Royal College of Art’s renowned Colour Reference Library which spans six centuries of works and nearly 2,000 titles, from a Gothic manuscript on the composition of the rainbow to hand-painted Enlightenment works on color theory and vibrant 20th-century color charts, including many fascinating examples not  seen in other books.

Delving far and wide in this fascinating and varied subject, this book will help readers find new layers of meaning and complexity in their everyday experiences and teach them to look closer at our colorful lives.
This comprehensive, beautiful book delves deep into the complex but fascinating story of our relationship with color throughout human history.

Color is fundamental to our experience and understanding...

Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9780711288843
PRICE US$28.00 (USD)
PAGES 256

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Featured Reviews

This book is a history of color and how humanity interacts with it. It goes over many attempts to define colors, devise ways to organize them, and to see how they can best interact and harmonize with each other. It also goes over the history of some colors and how they were discovered and used (including the history of natural and synthetic dyes).

This book was absolutely fascinating. I loved reading the history of the different color systems included in this. I had no idea that the history of colors and how they have been categorized and used was so complex. This book really takes a deep dive into color history and I loved reading about all of it. The book bounces back and forth between the history and how color is used in various things like food and medicine and fashion. There was so much in here that I had no idea about before. There were many illustrations throughout the book to help show the different theories that were talked about and it really helped with understanding each color theory that was talked about.

Overall this book was just amazing. I highly recommend it for fans of non fiction, especially anyone artistically minded.

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I absolutely loved reading this book. I was completely drawn into the topic and could not stop reading it.

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