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La invención del color
¿De dónde viene el color? ¿Cómo encuentran los pintores nuevas tonalidades y de qué manera influyen éstas en su obra? Desde la austera paleta de los griegos y la costosa pasión por el púrpura de los romanos hasta la gloriosa profusión del arte renacentista y la sobriedad cromática de Velázquez y Rembrandt; desde las tempranas incursiones de los pintores románticos en el laboratorio del químico al matrimonio, en ocasiones fallido y en otras espectacularmente exitoso, entre arte y ciencia en el siglo XX, la química y el uso artístico del color han existido siempre en una simbiótica relación que ha determinado sus respectivas evoluciones. La historia de la pintura ha estado influida por la disponibilidad o no de determinados pigmentos, y los descubrimientos científicos se han reflejado directamente en la paleta del artista. Lleno de anécdotas y apuntes etimológicos, La invención del color es una historia luminosa de la magia escondida en el lienzo del pintor.
460 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
December 18, 2009
This review originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News:
Whenever I tell people that I'm colorblind they want to talk about it, which can be frustrating. What's it like? they ask. What's it like not being colorblind? I reply.
The best I can do is to explain that, no, the world doesn't look like a black-and-white movie to me. I'm mildly red-green deficient: For me, some pinkish beiges are identical to greenish ones; some purples are indistinguishable from bluish-gray.
You can see what I see if you go to www.colorfield.com/FilterGallery1a.html and put your cursor over the word ''deutan'' between the pictures. But there's no way we can talk about what I see -- or from your point of view don't see.
Language has always been a feeble instrument when it comes to color. Take Homer's famous image, the ''wine-dark sea.'' No wine I know of is the color of Homer's Aegean -- unless it's some blueberry-flavored concoction from Boone's Farm.
Further linguistic confusion: If you look up the etymology of the word ''blue,'' you'll find that it derives from the Latin flavus, which meant ''yellow.'' Moreover, Philip Ball tells us, ''The Japanese awo can mean 'green,' 'blue,' or 'dark,' depending on the context. Vietnamese and Korean also decline to distinguish green from blue. Some languages have only three or four color terms.''
Clearly, language isn't the medium for color -- that belongs to art. In ''Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color,'' Ball brilliantly traces the history of color from cave painting to abstract expressionism and beyond. Ball isn't an artist; he's a scientist, with an undergraduate degree in chemistry and a Ph.D. in physics. From his point of view, art is chemistry, and the history of art is the history of the technology of making color.
Until the 19th century, virtually all the pigments used by artists came from nature -- from minerals, plants and animals, even from insects. And the technology early artists used to make these pigments was highly sophisticated: In 2500 B.C., the Egyptians were concocting a blue pigment by firing lime, copper oxide and sand in kilns whose temperatures were carefully maintained at between 1,470 and 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit.
The creation of these pigments grew out of the technologies devised for making practical things such as soap, glass and pottery, but the process works both ways. Ball explains: ''It seems likely that the developments in kiln technology afforded by the early manufacture of blue-glazed objects led to the discovery of copper smelting from its ore. A love of color ushered in the Bronze Age.''
In the Middle Ages, alchemists added to the palette with new discoveries. Medieval artists prized some colors less for their faithfulness to nature than for their preciousness -- the more precious, the more likely they were to be used in sacred contexts. Thus blue became the color associated with Mary, the mother of Jesus, not because it was the color of the sky or for any symbolic reason, Ball says, but because it was expensive: Ultramarine -- so called because it came from ''across the sea'' -- was made by a difficult process that involved pulverizing lapis lazuli, the chief source of which was Afghanistan.
In the Renaissance, the focus of art shifted from the worship of God toward fidelity to the observed world. And because ''nature had more hues than the artist,'' there was a demand for new color technologies. One innovation caught on like crazy: the use of oil as a medium for pigments.
Medieval and early Renaissance artists worked in tempera, a tricky medium -- some colors could not be used next to one another because they would react chemically. In the 15th century, Flemish painters, particularly Jan van Eyck, perfected a method of working with oil paints, which give a richer, less hard-edged finish to the painting, allowing for the illusion of depth and subtleties of shading. And the medium of oil, Ball explains, ''insulates'' the pigments from one another, so that ''pigments that react chemically with one another in tempera might be stably combined in oil.''
The age of exploration expanded the search for new pigments, leading to such oddities as ''Indian yellow,'' which became popular in Europe in the late 18th century. The raw pigment was ''sold in hard, dirty-colored, ill-smelling balls,'' but its source was mysterious until 1883, when it was traced to a village in India. A group of cattle owners had created the pigment by feeding their cows solely on mango leaves, collecting their urine and heating it to precipitate a solid that was pressed into balls and sold. Indian yellow disappeared from the market, not because people found the substance disgusting but because ''the practices of the milkmen were denounced as inhumane, and laws were passed to prohibit them.''
The technology of color expanded further with the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The great experiments with color by Turner and Whistler, the Pre-Raphaelites, the Impressionists, Matisse, the Fauves, and other 19th- and 20th-century artists were made possible by the discovery that vivid colors could be made from coal tar derivatives.
And just as the desire for color may have helped usher in the Bronze Age, the demand for new colors helped create the modern chemical industry: The giant European chemical and pharmaceutical companies Bayer, Hoechst, BASF and Ciba-Geigy all have their origins in the demand for aniline dyes.
''Out of bright purples and lustrous reds, shocking pinks and brilliant yellows,'' Ball comments, ''emerged all that is good and bad in this most mercurial of modern technologies: cures for devastating diseases, cheap and lightweight materials, mustard gas and Zyklon B, enough explosives to fuel two world wars and more, liquid crystals, and ozone holes. The modern age, in other words.''
The downside for artists was that many of the new pigments proved unstable. Turner was one of the most avid users of the new colors, but, Ball tells us, ''by the end of the nineteenth century, the poor stability of some of the new pigments left several of Turner's works in sorry repair.'' Similarly, Van Gogh's sunflowers no longer have the brilliance originally promised by the pigment chrome yellow, which has deteriorated.
''Bright Earth'' is a treasure of anecdote and information, surveying not only the history of art, the growth of industries it has created, and the lives of the artists who have served it, but also the physics of light and the physiology of the eye. It also glances at the future, as new technologies -- photography, color printing, digital reproduction -- widen both the access to materials and the definition of art.
The book is generously illustrated, with 66 color plates, but Ball is such an engaging, lucid writer that it hardly needs them. For once, language is up to the task of talking about color.
Whenever I tell people that I'm colorblind they want to talk about it, which can be frustrating. What's it like? they ask. What's it like not being colorblind? I reply.
The best I can do is to explain that, no, the world doesn't look like a black-and-white movie to me. I'm mildly red-green deficient: For me, some pinkish beiges are identical to greenish ones; some purples are indistinguishable from bluish-gray.
You can see what I see if you go to www.colorfield.com/FilterGallery1a.html and put your cursor over the word ''deutan'' between the pictures. But there's no way we can talk about what I see -- or from your point of view don't see.
Language has always been a feeble instrument when it comes to color. Take Homer's famous image, the ''wine-dark sea.'' No wine I know of is the color of Homer's Aegean -- unless it's some blueberry-flavored concoction from Boone's Farm.
Further linguistic confusion: If you look up the etymology of the word ''blue,'' you'll find that it derives from the Latin flavus, which meant ''yellow.'' Moreover, Philip Ball tells us, ''The Japanese awo can mean 'green,' 'blue,' or 'dark,' depending on the context. Vietnamese and Korean also decline to distinguish green from blue. Some languages have only three or four color terms.''
Clearly, language isn't the medium for color -- that belongs to art. In ''Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color,'' Ball brilliantly traces the history of color from cave painting to abstract expressionism and beyond. Ball isn't an artist; he's a scientist, with an undergraduate degree in chemistry and a Ph.D. in physics. From his point of view, art is chemistry, and the history of art is the history of the technology of making color.
Until the 19th century, virtually all the pigments used by artists came from nature -- from minerals, plants and animals, even from insects. And the technology early artists used to make these pigments was highly sophisticated: In 2500 B.C., the Egyptians were concocting a blue pigment by firing lime, copper oxide and sand in kilns whose temperatures were carefully maintained at between 1,470 and 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit.
The creation of these pigments grew out of the technologies devised for making practical things such as soap, glass and pottery, but the process works both ways. Ball explains: ''It seems likely that the developments in kiln technology afforded by the early manufacture of blue-glazed objects led to the discovery of copper smelting from its ore. A love of color ushered in the Bronze Age.''
In the Middle Ages, alchemists added to the palette with new discoveries. Medieval artists prized some colors less for their faithfulness to nature than for their preciousness -- the more precious, the more likely they were to be used in sacred contexts. Thus blue became the color associated with Mary, the mother of Jesus, not because it was the color of the sky or for any symbolic reason, Ball says, but because it was expensive: Ultramarine -- so called because it came from ''across the sea'' -- was made by a difficult process that involved pulverizing lapis lazuli, the chief source of which was Afghanistan.
In the Renaissance, the focus of art shifted from the worship of God toward fidelity to the observed world. And because ''nature had more hues than the artist,'' there was a demand for new color technologies. One innovation caught on like crazy: the use of oil as a medium for pigments.
Medieval and early Renaissance artists worked in tempera, a tricky medium -- some colors could not be used next to one another because they would react chemically. In the 15th century, Flemish painters, particularly Jan van Eyck, perfected a method of working with oil paints, which give a richer, less hard-edged finish to the painting, allowing for the illusion of depth and subtleties of shading. And the medium of oil, Ball explains, ''insulates'' the pigments from one another, so that ''pigments that react chemically with one another in tempera might be stably combined in oil.''
The age of exploration expanded the search for new pigments, leading to such oddities as ''Indian yellow,'' which became popular in Europe in the late 18th century. The raw pigment was ''sold in hard, dirty-colored, ill-smelling balls,'' but its source was mysterious until 1883, when it was traced to a village in India. A group of cattle owners had created the pigment by feeding their cows solely on mango leaves, collecting their urine and heating it to precipitate a solid that was pressed into balls and sold. Indian yellow disappeared from the market, not because people found the substance disgusting but because ''the practices of the milkmen were denounced as inhumane, and laws were passed to prohibit them.''
The technology of color expanded further with the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The great experiments with color by Turner and Whistler, the Pre-Raphaelites, the Impressionists, Matisse, the Fauves, and other 19th- and 20th-century artists were made possible by the discovery that vivid colors could be made from coal tar derivatives.
And just as the desire for color may have helped usher in the Bronze Age, the demand for new colors helped create the modern chemical industry: The giant European chemical and pharmaceutical companies Bayer, Hoechst, BASF and Ciba-Geigy all have their origins in the demand for aniline dyes.
''Out of bright purples and lustrous reds, shocking pinks and brilliant yellows,'' Ball comments, ''emerged all that is good and bad in this most mercurial of modern technologies: cures for devastating diseases, cheap and lightweight materials, mustard gas and Zyklon B, enough explosives to fuel two world wars and more, liquid crystals, and ozone holes. The modern age, in other words.''
The downside for artists was that many of the new pigments proved unstable. Turner was one of the most avid users of the new colors, but, Ball tells us, ''by the end of the nineteenth century, the poor stability of some of the new pigments left several of Turner's works in sorry repair.'' Similarly, Van Gogh's sunflowers no longer have the brilliance originally promised by the pigment chrome yellow, which has deteriorated.
''Bright Earth'' is a treasure of anecdote and information, surveying not only the history of art, the growth of industries it has created, and the lives of the artists who have served it, but also the physics of light and the physiology of the eye. It also glances at the future, as new technologies -- photography, color printing, digital reproduction -- widen both the access to materials and the definition of art.
The book is generously illustrated, with 66 color plates, but Ball is such an engaging, lucid writer that it hardly needs them. For once, language is up to the task of talking about color.
May 11, 2016
Wow, this is the book I have needed for years. Ball reminds me of John McPhee; when he takes on a subject it is an all-inclusive ride. Ball is a chemist and an excellent writer with a wonderful understanding of art. He takes apart color history going back to the Greeks and Egyptians and provides information on so many artists, painting and dying techniques up to the present. He includes a whole chapter on Blue, another on purple. He describes how colors were used in the renaissance, how alchemists created colors, and continues on through the 19th century to the present. Even though Ball is British, he answered all color questions for me --did the greeks have a bad sense of color, where did quinicridome come from, why was Matisse a fauvist, how does Munsell compare to Itten, are all paints today truly synthetic, how is enamel made, when did they stop grinding lapis lazuli for blue, what is a water-based oil, how did the color field movement develop...all questions except, how did the Pantone color system start? I still don't know, but he does describe the "Colour Index International" of 9000 pages listing all the colors manufactured today. There is a wonderful bibliography of 125 books on color, a useful index and notes. And what is happening to color and painting right now? Everyone is looking for the newest technology to try out, as they always have, says Ball, with many examples including Turrell's use of light. Ball ends with a quote from Van Gogh, "The painter of the future is a colorist such as has never been seen before." This is a faith-restoring book.
May 27, 2022
Este libro es tan útil para indagar en el color en forma concreta y bastante técnica para quienes no pintamos (pero nos interesamos por el color como medio). El repaso histórico que el autor hace por las diferentes materialidades que han atravesado el color como pigmento desde el inicio del arte pictórico es bastante completo y emocionante, así como sus menciones al cierre sobre el advenimiento de las vanguardias va delimitando la noción del color misma, como forma en sí.
November 6, 2011
Bright Earth -- a book that I had no knowledge of except that it had ended up on my Reading List, and somehow thought was going to be a novel set in India -- turns out to be a history of the pigments used in artists' paints. It was an eye-opener, even literally I suppose. I had never really thought about the character of art being influenced by the available materials. I hope I am not alone in having unthinkingly sort of assumed that all pigments were available to all artists everywhere, and that color choices in art were pretty much just a matter of culture and aesthetics. I had another think coming.
The book begins with a brief outline of the science, physics, and chemistry of color, then progresses more or less chronologically from antiquity to the early 20th Century. Then, there is an especially interesting chapter on how and why paintings decay over time and another on art prints in reproduction. Ball closes with a pair of weaker but necessary chapters on new pigments in the paintings of the last 100 years and the use of color in newer, non-painted media.
It is in many ways a fun and thought-provoking book. Its strength, it must be said, is not in showing how the range of available of pigments in particular times and places influenced the history of art. Ball often gestures towards this kind of analysis, but outside of a very few cut-and-dried examples -- the wealthier Renaissance patrons liked their painters to use a lot of Ultramarine because it was conspicuously expensive -- it turns out to be pretty tough to draw many strict causative arrows from the materials to what ended up getting painted. Turns out that culture and aesthetics are pretty key, after all.
Yet there is still a lot to like in the Ball's materials-focused history. It is, for one thing, rich in quirky anecdotes. Chasing down the trail of paint history takes him through dazzlingly dense thickets of color linguistics, the lore and actual practice of alchemy, the early history of chemistry as a science, and the emergence of the chemical industry. Throw in centuries of quirky artists, and you've got a lot of great stories. Ball tells them well and -- a skill lacking in many modern non-fiction writers -- knows how to employ a long quotation to solid effect.
Too, looking at the paint shows new aspects of the paintings. I have, again naively, always thought of a painting being essentially a two-dimensional array of colored fields and figures. Ball shows how many pictorial effects are achieved through the layering of paints, with underpainting determining the overall tone of a piece and layers of translucent overpainting changing the character of a opaque original layer. It literally adds a new dimension -- depth -- to my conception of the painted surface.
Finally, for each historical period he covers, Ball tosses in a little capsule summary of the era's traditional art history. While not strictly necessary for a history of paint, these are so apt and engagingly written that they are a welcome addition to the text. Bright Earth is not, after all, a book with a powerfully argued thesis, nor does it provide anything like comprehensive coverage of any specific topic. It's really more of a scrapbook about paint, the painters who used them, and the industrial, proto-industrial, and chemical processes that brought them into being. It is an excellent leisure read for anyone who loves color, art, or looking at history from a new and unexpected angle.
The book begins with a brief outline of the science, physics, and chemistry of color, then progresses more or less chronologically from antiquity to the early 20th Century. Then, there is an especially interesting chapter on how and why paintings decay over time and another on art prints in reproduction. Ball closes with a pair of weaker but necessary chapters on new pigments in the paintings of the last 100 years and the use of color in newer, non-painted media.
It is in many ways a fun and thought-provoking book. Its strength, it must be said, is not in showing how the range of available of pigments in particular times and places influenced the history of art. Ball often gestures towards this kind of analysis, but outside of a very few cut-and-dried examples -- the wealthier Renaissance patrons liked their painters to use a lot of Ultramarine because it was conspicuously expensive -- it turns out to be pretty tough to draw many strict causative arrows from the materials to what ended up getting painted. Turns out that culture and aesthetics are pretty key, after all.
Yet there is still a lot to like in the Ball's materials-focused history. It is, for one thing, rich in quirky anecdotes. Chasing down the trail of paint history takes him through dazzlingly dense thickets of color linguistics, the lore and actual practice of alchemy, the early history of chemistry as a science, and the emergence of the chemical industry. Throw in centuries of quirky artists, and you've got a lot of great stories. Ball tells them well and -- a skill lacking in many modern non-fiction writers -- knows how to employ a long quotation to solid effect.
Too, looking at the paint shows new aspects of the paintings. I have, again naively, always thought of a painting being essentially a two-dimensional array of colored fields and figures. Ball shows how many pictorial effects are achieved through the layering of paints, with underpainting determining the overall tone of a piece and layers of translucent overpainting changing the character of a opaque original layer. It literally adds a new dimension -- depth -- to my conception of the painted surface.
Finally, for each historical period he covers, Ball tosses in a little capsule summary of the era's traditional art history. While not strictly necessary for a history of paint, these are so apt and engagingly written that they are a welcome addition to the text. Bright Earth is not, after all, a book with a powerfully argued thesis, nor does it provide anything like comprehensive coverage of any specific topic. It's really more of a scrapbook about paint, the painters who used them, and the industrial, proto-industrial, and chemical processes that brought them into being. It is an excellent leisure read for anyone who loves color, art, or looking at history from a new and unexpected angle.
March 4, 2022
The book does as it says – surveys the invention of colour: starting from the beginning, where stones were grinded down to powder that forms a paint, to later, where colour is developed for dyes used in fabrics and then paint, and much later, colour in digital form.
My favourite parts were Philip Ball’s accounts of the chemistry experiments to discover a colour. Though I wish it covered more on Newton’s and Goethe’s theory rather than just a mention (I’m guessing I’ll find this in other books).
On balance, the book is more art history than colour theory but for me reading about how colours came about, some by fluke accidents – were wow!!!! Moments and so interesting!!!
I have always taken colour for granted and it never occurred the work involved or there were times that certain colours just did not exist. This is a mind-blowing concept for me, and there are so many gems in this book that is already making me look at art and the art books I have differently.
My favourite parts were Philip Ball’s accounts of the chemistry experiments to discover a colour. Though I wish it covered more on Newton’s and Goethe’s theory rather than just a mention (I’m guessing I’ll find this in other books).
On balance, the book is more art history than colour theory but for me reading about how colours came about, some by fluke accidents – were wow!!!! Moments and so interesting!!!
I have always taken colour for granted and it never occurred the work involved or there were times that certain colours just did not exist. This is a mind-blowing concept for me, and there are so many gems in this book that is already making me look at art and the art books I have differently.
September 1, 2018
2,75
Non ho capito la maggior parte delle cose di chimica e non ho trovato nozioni interessanti inerenti all’arte antica e moderna che già non conoscessi. Si concentra troppo sull’arte contemporanea e a me questa non interessa. O meglio, non mi interessa approfondirla così tanto. Se siete interessati ai pittori del XX e XXI secolo ve lo consiglio, se volete sapere di più sui colori utilizzati da Giotto o dagli artisti moderni (Rinascimento ecc) potete trovare libri incentrati proprio su questo tema. Spero.
Non ho capito la maggior parte delle cose di chimica e non ho trovato nozioni interessanti inerenti all’arte antica e moderna che già non conoscessi. Si concentra troppo sull’arte contemporanea e a me questa non interessa. O meglio, non mi interessa approfondirla così tanto. Se siete interessati ai pittori del XX e XXI secolo ve lo consiglio, se volete sapere di più sui colori utilizzati da Giotto o dagli artisti moderni (Rinascimento ecc) potete trovare libri incentrati proprio su questo tema. Spero.
January 14, 2023
DNF
Oh my, for a book that I thought would be so interesting, this book bored me tears!
Long dreary passages about artists and useless quotations aplenty.
I'm gonna trawl through the bibliography to see if I can salvage any useful reference material then it's off to the community book exchange with you my son!
Life is too short!
Oh my, for a book that I thought would be so interesting, this book bored me tears!
Long dreary passages about artists and useless quotations aplenty.
I'm gonna trawl through the bibliography to see if I can salvage any useful reference material then it's off to the community book exchange with you my son!
Life is too short!
October 6, 2020
"Philip Ball es un referente popular entre especialistas y aficionados a las ciencias. Formado como químico y autor de numerosos escritos científicos nos ofrece una particular visión de la historia de la pintura desde un punto de vista desatendido por los historiadores: la tecnología.
Desmitifica la figura del artista como genio creador y nos lo muestra en una dimensión más humana, en su faceta de artesano, cuyo trabajo se ve limitado por las herramientas de las que dispone y cuya libertad es relativa.
Durante muchos siglos los materiales para la creación de pigmentos se extraían de componentes de origen natural y su fabricación era artesanal. Pero no todos los colores eran accesibles, recordemos el preciado lapislázuli, traído del lejano oriente y solo asequible para unos pocos. La paleta del pintor estaba condicionada por factores económicos de manera que los artistas se veían obligados a resolver sus problemas en los talleres haciendo toda suerte de mezclas para elaborar sus propios colores, no siempre con buenos resultados. Resulta incuestionable que la disponibilidad o no de estos pigmentos, condicionada por las leyes de mercado y los avances tecnológicos involucrados en la producción de los colores fueron, en realidad, los verdaderos responsables de la evolución del arte por encima de las corrientes estilísticas y la personalidad propia de los pintores. La tecnología abre sus puertas a los artistas y, desde siempre, el arte ha encontrado la manera de aprovechar lo que esta le ofrece." Raquel Ungo
Desmitifica la figura del artista como genio creador y nos lo muestra en una dimensión más humana, en su faceta de artesano, cuyo trabajo se ve limitado por las herramientas de las que dispone y cuya libertad es relativa.
Durante muchos siglos los materiales para la creación de pigmentos se extraían de componentes de origen natural y su fabricación era artesanal. Pero no todos los colores eran accesibles, recordemos el preciado lapislázuli, traído del lejano oriente y solo asequible para unos pocos. La paleta del pintor estaba condicionada por factores económicos de manera que los artistas se veían obligados a resolver sus problemas en los talleres haciendo toda suerte de mezclas para elaborar sus propios colores, no siempre con buenos resultados. Resulta incuestionable que la disponibilidad o no de estos pigmentos, condicionada por las leyes de mercado y los avances tecnológicos involucrados en la producción de los colores fueron, en realidad, los verdaderos responsables de la evolución del arte por encima de las corrientes estilísticas y la personalidad propia de los pintores. La tecnología abre sus puertas a los artistas y, desde siempre, el arte ha encontrado la manera de aprovechar lo que esta le ofrece." Raquel Ungo
September 22, 2024
One of the most readable books on colour, pigment and history of art. Lots and lots of great info!
September 18, 2018
You know how sometimes you go on a date with someone, and you feel like, ok, they had some interesting things to say, but you don't necessarily want to go out with them again? That's how I feel about this book. In the end, I gave up on reading this straight through, and ended up using the index to skip around. There's some interesting facts in it, and I appreciate that, but the author's tone is a little too lofty for my tastes, and some of the information is definitely outdated. For example, the author explicitly says, "...there is no reason to suppose that our ability to distinguish colors is limited by the structure of our color vocabulary", but this is directly contradicted by the latest research (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180...).
There are some nice plates throughout the book, but I was disappointed that only one of the credited artists was non-white, and that there were zero female artists whose work I could find represented in the plates. This, despite the author's overwrought apologia about gender representation from the preface: "I have often used the masculine third person to denote a generic painter until the 20th century. This is simply an attempt to be consistent with historical record: female painters were usually such a rare exception that "his or her" would jar within the context." (Imagine me rolling my eyes and making the international hand gesture for 'Wanker' here. But he's not done!) "We can deplore the inequities of early ages without trying to deny them. But as you will see, some women were able to become painters even the most chauvinistic of times."
To which I can only say, Thanks, but No Thanks (and maybe go fuck yourself while you're at it.) Because apparently you can deplore the inequities of earlier ages while also perpetuating them.
There are some nice plates throughout the book, but I was disappointed that only one of the credited artists was non-white, and that there were zero female artists whose work I could find represented in the plates. This, despite the author's overwrought apologia about gender representation from the preface: "I have often used the masculine third person to denote a generic painter until the 20th century. This is simply an attempt to be consistent with historical record: female painters were usually such a rare exception that "his or her" would jar within the context." (Imagine me rolling my eyes and making the international hand gesture for 'Wanker' here. But he's not done!) "We can deplore the inequities of early ages without trying to deny them. But as you will see, some women were able to become painters even the most chauvinistic of times."
To which I can only say, Thanks, but No Thanks (and maybe go fuck yourself while you're at it.) Because apparently you can deplore the inequities of earlier ages while also perpetuating them.
Read
March 29, 2012Brimful of facts, the book enhances our understanding of colors, color perception and production, drawing and history of art in general. It portrays interesting intertwinement of painting techniques development and 'hardware' available for artists at various points in history.
I found it impossible to read without an Internet access available around. Despite a number of illustrations the author constantly refers (and for good reasons) to a yet greater number of works. Thus it is more rewarding - both estethically and cognitively - to check those paintings to better understand the points made by this brilliant author.
I found it impossible to read without an Internet access available around. Despite a number of illustrations the author constantly refers (and for good reasons) to a yet greater number of works. Thus it is more rewarding - both estethically and cognitively - to check those paintings to better understand the points made by this brilliant author.
June 27, 2019
A book that blunts the edge of curiosity. A whirlwind of breathless prose when discussing painting’s master pieces, it veers from art history to chemistry to long lists of names and synonyms back to physics (badly explained) to endless paragraphs of technicalities (see the chapter on photography). I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Disappointing given how much I enjoyed some of Ball’s other writing.
March 18, 2025
3.5 ⭐️ Super chulo!! Todo lo que cuenta me parece muy muy interesante: cómo históricamente la tecnología del color y los movimientos artisticos han ido retroalimentándose. El libro es un puente a medio camino entre ciencia y arte, y cuenta anécdotas y pasajes históricos que ponen de manifiesto que las dos disciplinas estan mucho mas cerca de lo que pensamos. Sin embargo, alguna parte se me ha hecho un poco pesada, puesto que el autor referencia autores, cuadros y estilos de forma constante y frenética.
July 11, 2020
Interessante, ma a volte troppo denso di informazioni e un po' ripetitivo
February 3, 2015
The best parts are the historical tracereis of the names of colors we take for granted but have no connection anymore to the "earthiness" of their origins. Like this. Crimson comes from the Greek word that approximated the name of an insect that when crushed by pestol would produce an intense dye of deep bluish red.
It is not particularly well-written -- very dense and sometimes clumsy. But, it is so fascinating that one puts up with the style because the ideas are so intriguing.
The most interesting thing I learned is that painters were also alchemists protecting their pigment recipes so fiercely. A new revolution would be precipitated by making a new color which literally changed the style and execution of art thereafter. Colors that were technologically unproduceable did not appear in artwork until they were innovated to be produceable. An artist could exclusivize his work by having the only lindseed oil pigment recipe for a new color! Only after he/she died would that color become available to other artists through the apothecarists guilds across Europe. One of the primary mercantile activities of apothecaries was the compounding and sale of artist oil pigments in paints and pastels.
They were the repositories of vast records of recipes for the production of artist paints which would morph into the burgeoning scientific discipline of chemistry serving the new needs of medicinal potions and pills. This is why many people particularly in Europe still refer to the local corner pharmacy as the apothecarist!
Ball traces the historic processes of techonological color innovation through the ages & relates it to art history through the ages.
Modern chemistry is the result of the Industrialization of the pigmentist/apothecarist artist supply trade!
So fascinating.
Ball makes plain the color-space science of chroma, hue, value brought into the digitized cybernetic age & takes us into the technological redefinition thru space exploration imaging & transmission of what "color" is, scientifically speaking.
Very important book to read.
It is not particularly well-written -- very dense and sometimes clumsy. But, it is so fascinating that one puts up with the style because the ideas are so intriguing.
The most interesting thing I learned is that painters were also alchemists protecting their pigment recipes so fiercely. A new revolution would be precipitated by making a new color which literally changed the style and execution of art thereafter. Colors that were technologically unproduceable did not appear in artwork until they were innovated to be produceable. An artist could exclusivize his work by having the only lindseed oil pigment recipe for a new color! Only after he/she died would that color become available to other artists through the apothecarists guilds across Europe. One of the primary mercantile activities of apothecaries was the compounding and sale of artist oil pigments in paints and pastels.
They were the repositories of vast records of recipes for the production of artist paints which would morph into the burgeoning scientific discipline of chemistry serving the new needs of medicinal potions and pills. This is why many people particularly in Europe still refer to the local corner pharmacy as the apothecarist!
Ball traces the historic processes of techonological color innovation through the ages & relates it to art history through the ages.
Modern chemistry is the result of the Industrialization of the pigmentist/apothecarist artist supply trade!
So fascinating.
Ball makes plain the color-space science of chroma, hue, value brought into the digitized cybernetic age & takes us into the technological redefinition thru space exploration imaging & transmission of what "color" is, scientifically speaking.
Very important book to read.
May 24, 2015
The subtitle of this book is "Art and the Invention of Color". It's a book that I've been looking for, for years. I saw it once in the bookstore at a museum, many years ago and didn't buy it. When I saw it again, it was an instant purchase. The book pretty much answers the very basic question; Where does color come from? From the early Greeks and their very basic palette, to the Renaissance and beyond. Out of the birth of Chemistry came vibrant colors used by the painters of the time. Vibrant, yes, but rather toxic as well. From the brown and red ochres to the story of blue, to purple and the story of chemical dye industry. A fascinating read.
"Pigments are not not 'simply and solely colour', but substances with specific properties and attributes, not the least among them cost. How is your desire for blue affected if you had just paid more for it than its equivalent weight in gold? That yellow looks glorious, but what if its traces on your fingertips could poison you at your supper table? This orange tempts like distilled sunlight, but how do you know that it will not have faded to dirty brown by next year? What, in short, is your relationship with the materials?"
"'Pink' was a pigment of diverse provenance - recipes identify it as an extract of weld, broom, or unripe buckthorn berries - but often of an indisputably yellow hue. Pinks were in fact defined neither in terms of their ingredients nor of their color - for there were also green pinks, brown pinks, and rose pinks. It appears that the noun refers instead to the method of synthesis."
(About Tyrian purple) "Each shellfish yielded just a drop of the dye, which was why the stuff was so fiendishly precious and why a significant proportion of the Phoenician population was employed in its manufacture. One ounce of the dye, required the sacrifice of around 250,000 shellfish. The shell piles of the Phoenicians still litter the eastern shore of the Mediterranean."
9/10
S: 4/12/15 F: 4/30/15 (19 Days)
"Pigments are not not 'simply and solely colour', but substances with specific properties and attributes, not the least among them cost. How is your desire for blue affected if you had just paid more for it than its equivalent weight in gold? That yellow looks glorious, but what if its traces on your fingertips could poison you at your supper table? This orange tempts like distilled sunlight, but how do you know that it will not have faded to dirty brown by next year? What, in short, is your relationship with the materials?"
"'Pink' was a pigment of diverse provenance - recipes identify it as an extract of weld, broom, or unripe buckthorn berries - but often of an indisputably yellow hue. Pinks were in fact defined neither in terms of their ingredients nor of their color - for there were also green pinks, brown pinks, and rose pinks. It appears that the noun refers instead to the method of synthesis."
(About Tyrian purple) "Each shellfish yielded just a drop of the dye, which was why the stuff was so fiendishly precious and why a significant proportion of the Phoenician population was employed in its manufacture. One ounce of the dye, required the sacrifice of around 250,000 shellfish. The shell piles of the Phoenicians still litter the eastern shore of the Mediterranean."
9/10
S: 4/12/15 F: 4/30/15 (19 Days)
February 3, 2013
Un libro complesso, che richiede una buona dose di volontà per seguire i complessi ragionamenti in campo tecnico-scientifico e in campo artistico. 346 pagine dense, confesso che in qualche capitolo mi sono un po’ perso, soprattutto nel post Rinascimento. Ma anche 346 pagine piene di rimandi, di tante storie che non conoscevo, di sofisticati pensieri sul senso dell’arte ma anche sull’influsso che l’arte ha avuto sulla nostra percezione del mondo. In una società come la nostra, basata in larga misura sul “vedere”, non è male fermarsi a meditare su cosa veramente vediamo e come vediamo. Il colore è materia, la materia è chimica e tecnologia, la materia ha dei limiti, invecchia, cambia, e noi costruiamo le nostre percezioni su qualcosa che originariamente poteva essere anche sensibilmente diverso. Gran parte dell’arte che osserviamo la osserviamo attraverso riproduzioni, ma queste riproduzioni sono per loro stessa natura infedeli. Quanto questa infedeltà influisce sull’esito finale? Quanto tradisce lo spirito dell’opera? La materia è oggettiva, ha una diffusione, un costo, e queste caratteristiche finiscono spesso per condizionare l’opera d’arte, al punto di condizionarne l’aspetto simbolico. Il colore azzurro della veste della Madonna deriva probabilmente dall’utilizzo del colore che per tutto il medioevo e fino al ’800 è stato tra i più preziosi e costosi, e ha condizionato la nostra percezione di purezza e santità.
Philip Ball ha raccolto in questo libro un lavoro monumentale, piacevole da leggere (anche se a tratti inevitabilmente faticoso), ben documentato. Sarebbe un libro da rileggere potendosi soffermare su tutte le riproduzioni dei quadri citati, io ho preferito cercare di seguire il filo del discorso immaginando, per non rompere il ritmo della narrazione.
Da consigliare a tutte le persone curiose a cui piace l’arte figurativa.
Philip Ball ha raccolto in questo libro un lavoro monumentale, piacevole da leggere (anche se a tratti inevitabilmente faticoso), ben documentato. Sarebbe un libro da rileggere potendosi soffermare su tutte le riproduzioni dei quadri citati, io ho preferito cercare di seguire il filo del discorso immaginando, per non rompere il ritmo della narrazione.
Da consigliare a tutte le persone curiose a cui piace l’arte figurativa.
September 13, 2016
I have long been interested in art and so I found this book to be quite interesting. It was a bit difficult to read at times because it got very technical, so if you have more exposure to science it would probably be more readable for you. It is also a book that requires a lot of close attention and I don't have that opportunity much these days. Nevertheless, it was a good read and full of fun tidbits about paints and painting.
May 9, 2013
Compared to other books on color, this one was overly technical, dense, unillustrated and academic. Who writes a book on color and fails to include more that 8 color pictures? The book is packed with interesting information but just too much like a college text book for me. Lots of potential for the author to have done something much more interesting.
December 25, 2020
Got to page 300 and then flagged the rest.
There some fascinating historical information and wonderful etymological/origins stories in here that I never knew.
This book could however be easily 20-30% shorter by removal of unnecessary detail, some examples and a fair proportion of repeated content.
There some fascinating historical information and wonderful etymological/origins stories in here that I never knew.
This book could however be easily 20-30% shorter by removal of unnecessary detail, some examples and a fair proportion of repeated content.
August 25, 2012
There was a lot of good historical information but I ended up quite disappointed in the sketchy coverage of acrylics and modern pigments, including the mistaken idea that they can only create a flat painting, nearly devoid of brush strokes.
August 11, 2015
I really enjoyed what I read of this book but after a while, it began to feel like a textbook. I may return to it someday--I think it would be best in small doses--kind of like red paint.
August 23, 2021
Good read but very dense. It could have edited out a good portion of the art talk and focused more on just the pigments. That was what I wanted to read about more.
November 24, 2020
La preparación de la púrpura tiria se conocía en Asía Menor desde el siglo XV a.C. Los griegos aprendieron el arte de los fenicios; en la Ilíada de Homero y la Eneida de Virgilio se mencionan ropajes teñidos de púrpura tiria. El tinte se extrae de dos especies de moluscos oriundos del mar Mediterráneo. La leyenda griega dice que la púrpura tiria fue descubierta por Heracles, que al ver la boca de su perro manchada de púrpura lo atribuyó a los moluscos que el animal acababa de comerse. Otros dicen que el perro era el dios fenicio Melkart. Los colorantes se producen en una glándula conocida como la flor o floración cerca de la cabeza del molusco, que contiene un fluido de color claro. Este líquido se extrae o bien rompiendo las conchas o bien exprimiéndolas en una prensa. Al contacto con la luz del sol y el aire, el fluido va cambiando su color blancuzco, primero a amarillo pálido, luego a verde, a azul y, finalmente, a púrpura. Cada molusco daba solamente una gota de tinte. Por eso este era tan endemoniadamente precioso, y por eso una parte considerable de la población fenicia se dedicaba a su fabricación. Treinta gramos de tinte exigía el sacrificio de 250.000 moluscos. Los montones de cochas dejadas por los fenicios aún ensucian la costa este del Mediterráneo.
October 30, 2020
Can't resist a quick tour of the nearest art museum when you find yourself in a place you've never been before? And then a nice evening of spreadsheets? This could be the book you love.
Philip Ball takes us on a historical tour of the use of color in art. How was it produced? What meaning does it have? What about the chemical and physical properties of the colors themselves? How do they change over time? Sometimes, the author verges on the edge of giving us a little too much science. But I, for one, much prefer this to the dumbing down of the topic.
Beautifully illustrated with a series of color plates, this book has fun stories and is packed with information. Sometimes he might go over your head but he'll come back down to earth with you. I enjoyed reading this book. If you're the kind who's scientifically curious and you like art you might too.
Philip Ball takes us on a historical tour of the use of color in art. How was it produced? What meaning does it have? What about the chemical and physical properties of the colors themselves? How do they change over time? Sometimes, the author verges on the edge of giving us a little too much science. But I, for one, much prefer this to the dumbing down of the topic.
Beautifully illustrated with a series of color plates, this book has fun stories and is packed with information. Sometimes he might go over your head but he'll come back down to earth with you. I enjoyed reading this book. If you're the kind who's scientifically curious and you like art you might too.
November 1, 2022
Philip Ball (o, al menos, el conjunto de colaboradores tras él) nos ofrece una visión profunda y densamente argumentada acerca del universo de los pigmentos, colorantes y lacas. Esto es, la materia prima de las tablas y lienzos de la cultura occidental.
El libro es profundo y provee de gran "insight" acerca de la composición química de los pigmentos, avatares históricos y problemáticas parejas. Ahora bien, su concepción del arte y de la estética son las propias de un neófito que aplica el "sentido común" (AKA ignorancia), o, dicho de otro modo, propias de una perspectiva cientifista que cree que el arte es mera cuestión de belleza y gusto. Aún así, ya quisieran muchos -o todos- los historiadores del arte formalistas, poseer el bagaje cultural que estr libro proporciona.
Muy recomendable, pese a su sesgo artístico.
El libro es profundo y provee de gran "insight" acerca de la composición química de los pigmentos, avatares históricos y problemáticas parejas. Ahora bien, su concepción del arte y de la estética son las propias de un neófito que aplica el "sentido común" (AKA ignorancia), o, dicho de otro modo, propias de una perspectiva cientifista que cree que el arte es mera cuestión de belleza y gusto. Aún así, ya quisieran muchos -o todos- los historiadores del arte formalistas, poseer el bagaje cultural que estr libro proporciona.
Muy recomendable, pese a su sesgo artístico.
September 3, 2024
Color has always been important to art (I know, obvious) but color doesn't just happen. Art history is full of artists, chemists and alchemists figuring out (together or apart) how to create color, whether it's a purple dye extracted from shellfish, finely ground lapis lazuli or acrylic paint. Artists with ideas about color look for a way to express them; the availability of color shapes artists' ideas and creations (ultramarine, a prized blue paint, was super-expensive at one time, so not everyone could use it).
Ball's book is a long dense history covering how paints create color, how they change or go wrong (some magnificent colors crack or dim quickly) and how ideas about color have shifted in the art world (one art expert a few centuries back declared that all good art was brown). Very good.
Ball's book is a long dense history covering how paints create color, how they change or go wrong (some magnificent colors crack or dim quickly) and how ideas about color have shifted in the art world (one art expert a few centuries back declared that all good art was brown). Very good.
September 26, 2017
Affascinante. Il blu oltremare si chiama così non perché suggerisca il mare ma perché veniva da "oltre il mare", dal lontano oriente.
Il Magenta ha questo nome per celebrare l'omonima vittoria dei francesi.
Ci sdilinquiamo per i girasoli di Van Gogh, ma erano di un altro giallo quando li ha dipinti.
Ball, chimico affascinato dall'arte e dalla tecnica artistica, ha scritto uno dei libri più coinvolgenti e trascinanti che abbia letto negli ultimi anni (anche se ho capito meno della metà delle reazioni chimiche descritte).
Il Magenta ha questo nome per celebrare l'omonima vittoria dei francesi.
Ci sdilinquiamo per i girasoli di Van Gogh, ma erano di un altro giallo quando li ha dipinti.
Ball, chimico affascinato dall'arte e dalla tecnica artistica, ha scritto uno dei libri più coinvolgenti e trascinanti che abbia letto negli ultimi anni (anche se ho capito meno della metà delle reazioni chimiche descritte).
August 2, 2019
Fascinating exploration of the chemistry of color in Western art, which examines the relationship between science and technology on the one hand and art and aesthetics, on the other. I’m intrigued by the physicality of the media artists have used through the centuries, and how the embodied nature of paints, dyes and pigments have influenced artistic expression. This book, although a bit too technical and dry at times, gives a wonderful overview of this topic and a decent general history of Western art to boot!
May 23, 2022
Un libro pieno pieno di informazioni su tutto ciò che riguarda il colore nella storia dell'arte, in biologia (percezione), storia, chimica, arti e mestieri, etc etc
Si va dal relativismo percettivo (se in alcune culture mancavano le "declinazioni" naturali o artificiali di un dato colore allora mancano sia le parole che il loro considerarli diversi) alla storia della creazione dei pigmenti usati nelle arti e mestieri, dalle grotte di Lascaux dell'età della pietra fino ai prodotti di sintesi attuali.
Si imparano tante cose sui "finti" colori primari usati un tempo: partendo da materiali grezzi ed eterogenei aventi un dato colore (naturale o previa preparazione), mischiare i colori dava risultati totalmente diversi da quelli attesi dalla moderna "ruota dei colori" basata su colori puri. Questa lacuna (ai tempi imponderabile) spiega molto bene le ragioni delle teorie del colore (innato nel materiale) allora in voga.
Molto interessante anche la trattazione delle arti alchemiche e delle ragioni teoriche di queste credenze in epoche in cui mancavano le basi minime della chimica moderna.
Insomma, un libro fondamentalmente di chimica applicata (senza formule) che abbraccia talmente tanti argomenti da renderlo un ottimo sussidiario multidisciplinare.
Impossibile leggerlo una sola volta e poi dimenticarlo in libreria.
Si va dal relativismo percettivo (se in alcune culture mancavano le "declinazioni" naturali o artificiali di un dato colore allora mancano sia le parole che il loro considerarli diversi) alla storia della creazione dei pigmenti usati nelle arti e mestieri, dalle grotte di Lascaux dell'età della pietra fino ai prodotti di sintesi attuali.
Si imparano tante cose sui "finti" colori primari usati un tempo: partendo da materiali grezzi ed eterogenei aventi un dato colore (naturale o previa preparazione), mischiare i colori dava risultati totalmente diversi da quelli attesi dalla moderna "ruota dei colori" basata su colori puri. Questa lacuna (ai tempi imponderabile) spiega molto bene le ragioni delle teorie del colore (innato nel materiale) allora in voga.
Molto interessante anche la trattazione delle arti alchemiche e delle ragioni teoriche di queste credenze in epoche in cui mancavano le basi minime della chimica moderna.
Insomma, un libro fondamentalmente di chimica applicata (senza formule) che abbraccia talmente tanti argomenti da renderlo un ottimo sussidiario multidisciplinare.
Impossibile leggerlo una sola volta e poi dimenticarlo in libreria.
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