Color Symbolism

by Adolf Portmann, Dominique Zahan

Book by Portmann, Adolf, Zahan, Dominique

202 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 1977

About the author

Adolf Portmann was a zoologist. He studied zoology at the University of Basel and worked later in Geneva, Munich, Paris and Berlin, but mainly in marine biology laboratories in France and Helgoland. In 1931 he became professor of zoology in Basel. His main research areas covered marine biology and comparative morphology of vertebrates. His work was often interdisciplinary comprising sociological and philosophical aspects of life of animals and humans.

Reviews

[Rjyan]

First off, the Gershom Scholem lecture from the same series is not in this edition. That's why I was initially interested in it. The first lecture in here is very boring and from a scientist who makes strange qualifications about sight being "just" such-and-such physical process. The lectures are better after that, culminating in René Huyghe's mind-blowing look into the color choices made by some great painters. His insights are fascinating and of interest to anyone who sees things in color, regardless of whether they paint or care about art history. The last lecture, on the absence of color in Japanese ink works, is boring, too-- a little too-aptly colorless.