The History of Colour: A Universe of Chromatic Phenomena

by Neil Parkinson

This comprehensive, beautiful book delves deep into the complex but fascinating story of our relationship with colour 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 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.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, History

256 pages, Hardcover

Published September 14, 2023

Reviews

[Anisha Inkspill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a dream read. A book about books, but books on colour theory.

Many times, as I was reading this, I was left amazed, Neil Parkinson drew a picture of how colour had an impact not just on art and science but day to day life.

In over 400 pages (but I would later notice that other editions are 196 and 256 pages) this is an overview, but what’s fantastic for me is the inclusion of many, many colour charts, including ones by Maerz, Werner, Harris, Chevreul, Munsell and many others.

When I got this book it was more chance then knowing I would enjoy it this much. It was another find via random Google searches.

[victoria marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Color has taken possession of me," wrote Klee in his diary, after a revelatory visit to sunlit Tunisia for a working holiday in 1914. "I know that it has hold of me for ever [...] Color and I are one."
(page 236)

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essays included, “The Colour of”… BELIEF; COMMERCE; LANGUAGE; NATURE; FOOD; WELLNESS; PRINTING; &, MUSIC

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chapters:
Antiquity-1704: ALL WAS LIGHT
1705-1835: EVERY OBJECT IN THE CREATION
1836-1900: MAGICAL DRAPERY
1901-present: CHROMATIC TUNING FORKS

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holy moly… such an awe inspiring book!! highly recommend to those in love with colour/color! (definitely not for true beginners of the subject tho)

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This fascinating book looks at the history of our relationship to color, from early attempts to understand what color is (remembering, as the author points out, color does not actually exist, it’s a function of the brain) to various attempts to organize and categorize colors, to the uses of color in science, religion, nature, medicine, and even consumerism. A highlight of the book is the inclusion of dozens of illustrations from the Royal College of Art’s Colour Reference Library, which are beautiful works of art in and of themselves.

I have researched and taught about the intersection of art, music, mathematics, science and physics, and so my biggest thrill reading this book was learning about the countless attempts by scientists, artists, physicists and others to explore the relationships between color and other fields. Truly, everything is connected.

Readers should know that this book reads like a textbook or reference volume, and I wish the book had contained references and notes (other than illustration captions) to make it more appropriate for use by students and researchers. Still, I plan to purchase a hard copy so I can refer more thoroughly to the material.

Many thanks to Quarto Group and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Tania · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating Book!
I really enjoyed the way this book was broken down. "The Color of Belief"/ "The Color of Language" /"The Color of Nature"/ "The Color of Food"/" The Color of Commerce" / The Color of Printing / The Color of Music …. ETC

Color is everywhere and it influences everything. And its always been rather taboo in history. It means something to someone and something else to someone else.

"Its everyday magic has fascinated, perplexed, and infuriated philosophers, scientists, and artists alike, from Aristotle to Isaac Newton, to Wassily Kandinsky. The Ancient Greeks, the early scientists of the Islamic Golden Age, and the Enlightenment scholars all had parts to play."

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fully immersive history of colour, and covers everything from how light links to it, observations in nature from wildlife to food, to it's more modern commercialised usage in things such as fashion and printing and the subsequent development of synthetic hues to cover all the hues seen in nature that one can not easily replicate without to more unusual links like music. A worthy read especially as a dip in/ dip out book, if you are a researcher in the arts/ student of or simply intrigued by how the colour we see today came to be.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Er bestaat een Nederlandstalige uitgave van dit boek, dat ook eenvoudigweg De Geschiedenis van Kleur heet en vertaald is door de mij onbekende Akkie de Jong. Die heeft goed werk geleverd, lijkt me. Ik ben hoegenaamd niet thuis in de wereld van kleuren en de termen die daarbij horen, maar wat ik wel ken, was in elk geval correct vertaald, dus ik neem aan dat het verder ook allemaal wel goed is. Verder is het ook goed Nederlands. Ik zou het niet 'vlot' willen noemen, want de schrijfstijl is wel een hoger niveau dan je meestal merkt, maar dat valt natuurlijk te wijten aan Parkinson zelf. Het is niet hoogdravend te noemen of zo, maar wel tamelijk complex, en de inhoud is op gezette tijden ook wel wat complex.

Het boek gaat vooral over de evolutie van het menselijk begrip van kleuren en hoe wetenschappers en andere mensen die ermee in aanraking komen in hun leven kleuren hebben willen indelen. De geschiedenis bij de Oude Grieken (wat een verrassing) en gaat dan verder langs Isaac Newton en René Descartes (nog steeds geen verrassing) naar moderner tijden. Er komen heel wat onderverdelingen van kleur(en) langs, de ene al wat diepgaander en vreemder en complexer dan de andere. Er wordt gesproken over de schilderkunst, over RGB, CMYK enzovoorts - wat je dus verwacht van een boek als dit.
De tweedeling tussen chronologie en thema's vond ik ook heel goed passen. Eerst dacht ik dat dat storend zou werken, maar die afwisseling is juist goed. Zeker omdat de thema's ook heel uiteenlopend zijn, van handel via religie tot natuur. In een bepaald opzicht waren de thematische 'essays', zoals ze worden genoemd, het interessantste onderdeel van de twee. En overal staan er natuurlijk uittreksels van oud (en recenter) (boek)materiaal over kleuren.

Allemaal heel verhelderend allemaal, maar toch ontbrak er het een en ander. Ik had verwacht dat er ook sprake zou zijn over dingen zoals kleurenblindheid, UV-licht (dat dieren vaak wel kunnen zien maar wij niet) en dergelijke meer. Maar dat was in dit boek niet aanwezig. Dat komt allicht omdat Parkinson niet met dat doel dit boek heeft samengesteld en dat ik dus met het verkeerde idee eraan begonnen was, maar toch vond ik het spijtig. Dan was het boek wat langer geweest, natuurlijk, maar dat lijkt me hier geen probleem. Nu voelt het toch wel alsof het eindproduct niet compleet is.

6,9/10

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

The History of Color by Neil Parkinson looks at the history of color primarily through the documents in the Royal College of Art's Colour Reference Library. We look mostly at the intersection of human response to and understanding of color, so with a few exceptions this is not, nor does it claim to be, a technical look at the technical aspects of color theory.

The title may be misleading to some, especially if they just skimmed the book's introduction. Parkinson doesn't make any claim that this is a complete history, in fact, he states explicitly this is "a book about books about color," so to criticize it for not being what it neither claimed nor tried to be is disingenuous. As a look at the holdings in the library and a beautiful book that does serve as 'a' history of color, this works very well. For most people, the interest in color is in how we perceive it not simply in appearance but in meaning, and this volume looks at those aspects quite well.

I would recommend this to those who enjoy learning some history while perusing an attractive addition to your library. I really don't think anyone realistically comes to this book expecting a textbook level look at color through to the most recent innovations in digital display and generation, but if you are one of those, I would suggest looking for a book that claims to do that. That said, the impact of color is still the interplay between human and color perceived, so to know how to use the color generated, this book can still be a valuable reference.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The History of Color is a beautiful book that covers the relics which form the understanding and perception of color at the Royal College of Art in London. It is quite informative on the materials and resources housed in the collection, and provides a good primer for early color theory through the Scientific Revolution into the Industrial Era.

While this was an interesting read, it was not my favorite read about color theory. It is heavily focused on printed pigments and natural color. This is not a book to read if you are looking for information on color theory as it relates to our digital age. Very little is explored in this area, which is quickly becoming the most dominant area of our modern lives. It would have been interesting to see the art/design focus of digitized media be explored-even as a tangent.

Unfortunately, because it claims to be a complete history of color to the present the failure to address screens makes this book less a history of color, and more a history of the Royal College of Art's color archives.

I would that this book is a good book for the art collectors, those who love color and would really be interested in the complex history of color printing and pigment transformation that happened between 1700-1900. For that time period it is an important book. Otherwise if you are more interested in modern color theory or applications and transformations to color post 1900 you will need to look elsewhere.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing the ARC of this book.

[Michael Helm · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was only able to read a short bit of this - mainly the last chapter, about 20th century developments.
I wanted a framing for some of the things I had been thru in a color theory art class, & even the very short treatment helped me understand how the Bauhaus theorists especially Itten and Albers related to each other and prior work.

I was interested to learn about Ridgway's efforts to catalog colors so there would be defined and standard colors that could be used in ornithology (his specialty), botany, geology ... I knew about the similar work using Munsell colors for soil and geology. I will have to look into this because it is a useful nature journaling idea. 1000+ colors as a standard, tho ... that's difficult.

I was also interested to learn about James Clerk Maxwell's color spinning tops. I had never heard of this (I had a LOT of Maxwell's equations material in school and knew "all" about him) except for some vague remarks about also working in color. Will have to look into this more when time permits.

[Erika Mulvenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pictures are fantastic, I love just flipping through the book. Great as inspiration but not so great if you're interested in reading up on the actual history of how humans have tried to understand color. This book doesn't represent a total "history" of color as many important color theorists, milestones, and discoveries are omitted.

[Carly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dry, dry, dry. I felt like I was reading a grad school thesis. Boo.

[Anna Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting history of color through different applicantions. Delightful historic visuals.

[Lisa]

I want to read this book but the font is too small for my eyes.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’d asked me to guess how many color experts/scholars there had been in history I might have guessed – 10? NO – there have been hundreds of people who devoted huge chunks of their lives to color: Categorizing it; explaining it; naming variations, tints and shades. Why was it such a big deal? Well, there was a science motivation (describing the colors of birds, flowers, butterflies, rocks), but it was mainly to help artists and industries that produced colored products. I guess it used to be a big problem, before our high-quality printing and computers, if someone ordered Prussian Blue paper and what arrived wasn’t the Prussian Blue they had in mind. This was an issue I’d never considered or thought much about and, thus, I really liked this book. I love reading about a whole new world of ideas.
The author has summarized the work from the “nearly 2,000 titles” in the “Colour Reference Library” of the “Royal College of Art in London”. There are many illustrations from the books included. I don’t know that this would be a fun book for everyone, but if you like to learn new things and think about things in a new way, I’d definitely recommend this one.

[Pauline Stout · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.