The Histories of Ten Colors #ArtTuesday

via HYPERALLERGIC

Books and writing about color abound these days, which should bequite unsurprising, since colors are always present in our lives.

However, unlike recent titles such as The Designer’s Dictionary of Colorand The Secret Lives of Color, On Color, a joint effort between humanities professor David Scott Kastan and painter and writer Stephen Farthing, provides us with very little chromatic eye candy. In fact, rather than merely tracing a visuals-heavy history of a determined shade, On Color considers a particular shade across multiple disciplines, including film and literature. Each of the ten chapters is devoted to one color, including black, white, and gray. And while the titles given to the chapters — such “Roses are Red”, “Mixed Greens” and “At the Violet Hour” — are quite corny, and thankfully this element does not extend to the contents.

The book excels when it focuses on a particular color explored through historical accounts and across various media. For example, it deftly shows how blue is both introspective (they use the wording “interior life”)  and the hue portraying man’s desire for transcendence. They use works by Picasso, Yves Klein, and film auteur Derek Jarman to prove their point. Similarly, The symbolic meaning of the color white is served through Greek, Roman and neo-classical statues, the painting of a hog-tied lamb by Zubarán (“Agnus Dei” 1635–1640), and the quest for the white whale in Moby Dick.

What’s more, Kastan, who is a Shakespeare scholar, loves using philology and etymology to show how the perception of a color changed through centuries: he cites Shakespeare’s “your orange tawny beard” and “orange tawny bill” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as one of the earliest appearances of said color in literature, and notes how Old English had two cognate words, blaec and blac, the former corresponding to “black”, the latter meaning “shining” — a distinction which indicated that, back in the day, colors were differentiated not only by hue, but also by brilliance. Bypassing the constraints of traditional forms of visual art analysis is the book’s greatest strength.

See more!


Screenshot 4 2 14 11 48 AMEvery Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 38,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — New Products 11/15/2024 Featuring Adafruit bq25185 USB / DC / Solar Charger with 3.3V Buck Board! (Video)

Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: A New Arduino MicroPython Package Manager, How-Tos and Much More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

Adafruit IoT Monthly — The 2024 Recap Issue!

Maker Business – Adafruit Daily — Apple to build another chip at TSMC Arizona

Electronics – Adafruit Daily — SMT Tip – Stop moving around!

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !


No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.