Questo atlante cromatico del mondo naturale accosta singoli campioni di colore a esempi tratti dal regno animale, vegetale e minerale andando così a creare un brillante ed esaustivo sistema di riferimento del colore.
In occasione dei duecento anni dall'uscita dell'edizione ampliata della Werner's Nomenclature of Colours di Patrick Syme (1821), questo splendido volume riprende l'opera del pittore scozzese, concepita come una guida pratica, e la integra con illustrazioni ottocentesche di tutte le specie usate come riferimenti per i suoi centodieci colori standard. Alcuni testi di esperti descrivono l'utilizzo e lo sviluppo degli standard cromatici nel campo della zoologia, della botanica, della mineralogia e dell'anatomia, mentre svariati esemplari appartenenti a collezioni dell'epoca (uccelli, farfalle, uova, fiori e minerali) sono abbinati a ogni campione di colore. Con la sua pionieristica guida, Syme intendeva costituire un sistema di riferimento del colore che fosse universale, da usarsi per identificare, classificare e rappresentare le specie del mondo naturale: arricchita di contenuti inediti, questa nuova pubblicazione porta a compimento la sua iniziativa.
Taking a color reference from an ancient text is refreshing. This book reminds us that saturated colors we have been using since the computer era is indeed artificial. Nature's hue is actually way more desaturated then we thought. And as "Green" has been and will always be our lifestyle of the 21st century, pastoral minimal neutral tones will be back. Or, indeed, they never are really out of our life.
This is a beautiful book with gorgeous reprints of the colour plates from Werner's Nomenclature of Colour and Syme's Colour Standard, as well as pictures of natural history museum/collections. The book also lays out the history of how these colour systems were developed and expanded, as well as examples of how they were utilized and their impact on the various sciences (e.g. Darwin). At the end, there is a very useful chart to cross reference Syme's colours to both Windsor & Newton and Caran D'Ache artist colours.
As a professional artist I loved seeing and reading about the assortment of color palettes based in various branches of science. I chose the palette based on butterfly and bug science to adopt for my own art projects. The index chart in the back of this book was very helpful as I tracked down watercolor and gouache paint tubes for my newly adopted color palette. Very enjoyable book and very useful for artists!
I have a copy of a reprint of Syme’s Nomenclature of colour. And so this is an obvious follow on book. And it is beautiful. Not only the colours, but the examples of nature in which they can be found.
Me gustó mucho como incluye la historia de como se fueron estableciendo las nomenclaturas de referencia para colores, además de ir poniendo ejemplos por familia de color, incluyendo la "fórmula" para crear cada color y pinturas que lo usan en animales, plantas y minerales.
This book is wonderful and does an excellent job of showing the deeply intertwined relationship between nature, science, and art. My only criticism is that the reference colors in the book seem fairly muted compared to the true pigments.
The digital e-book is essentially unreadable due to sizing limitations, and an inability to zoom in far enough on the images and text. Seems to be a robust historical text, though.