Die Geschichte der Farben

by Alexandra Loske

Charts color exploration and expression from the 1600s to the present day through painters' tools, art, ephemera, and literature

Throughout history, artists, scientists, and philosophers have attempted to explain and order the visible color spectrum. Color: A Visual History from Newton to Modern Color Matching Guides offers the fascinating history of how color has been recorded, explored, and understood. Using an extraordinary collection of original color material that includes charts, wheels, artists' palettes, and swatches, the book showcases centuries of significant scientific discoveries and artistic exploration. It celebrates the visual quality and beauty of various color theories over time and highlights the creativity of their design and codification. The book showcases everything from fourteenth-century illuminated manuscripts to Moses Harris's The Natural System of Colours (ca. 1769), and from 1814's Werner's Nomenclature of Colours to Paul Klee's color harmonies to highlight the fascinating interactions of science and art. This stunning display of shades, tints, and tones is an authoritative guide for anyone working in the arts, as well as anyone passionate about color in their personal lives, homes, and surroundings.

Genres: Art, History, Nonfiction, Design, Science, Art and Photography

240 pages, Hardcover

Published May 20, 2019

Reviews

[EmelineB · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book narrates a history of colours based on a large variety of documents related to colour in artistic, social and scientific practices. The book is further organised chronologically, around five main periods and themes: The 18th century, the colour revolution, and the rainbow; The early 19th century, romanticism and its approach to colours; The later19th century, and the co-evolution of impressionism and industrialisation; The radicalism of the early 20th, and finally, contemporary tools and uses of colours. Within each of this theme, Loske describes the contribution of individuals, movements or family of tools.

The strength of the book first resides in its iconography, but also in Loske's multi-layered approach. It is as interesting to skim through, to trace the many concepts developed in the book or to pick-up on the evolution of objects. Among those, the palette and its representations occupy a place of choice.

[Diane M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Since I am not a color theorist or a painter, but only a frequent museum visitor, only the the first part of this book truly engaged me. By the middle and on to the end, I was just flipping the pages and looking at the illustrations. If a reader has an interest in either Isaac Newton or a particular artist mentioned in the book then they will get out of it what I did.

[Megan Easley-Walsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully illustrated and so interesting to take a historical approach to color through the centuries.