Color - Softcover

Zelanski, Paul J.; Fisher, Mary Pat

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0130984868 ISBN 13: 9780130984869

Publisher: Prentice Hall, 2002

Synopsis

This book addresses the subject of color in all media, both fine and applied. It provides an informative introduction to understanding color from the approaches of aesthetics, science, psychology, and history; and includes beautiful illustrations and direct quotes from working artists about their perspectives about color use. The book discusses all facets of color in historic and contemporary paintings, with sections on the psychological and compositional effects of color, theories of color relationships, subtractive notation and light mixtures, color combinations, and color in fine art and applied design. For working artists and employees in the fields of art and design, such as painters, sculptors, crafters, photographers, advertisement creators, cartoonists, commercial designers, computer artists and website designers, architects, landscape designers, interior designers, and clothing designers.

About this title

From the Back Cover

The fourth edition of Color is a valuable introduction to the art and science of color use in all artistic media. It provides a solid and thorough foundation in the aesthetic and practical basics of color, discussed from the artist's point of view, with many quotations from artists past and present on the subtleties of their techniques. Along with an extensive illustration program reflecting examples from fine and applied arts, there is now also a brief epigraph in each chapter.

Key features of the fourth edition:

• 35 exciting new illustrations, ranging from the established masters such as Matisse and Bonnard to contemporary computer graphic artists such as Jan Good and light sculptors such as Peter Erskine.
• New diagrams to illustrate the theory of color constancy, the reflection of light from various surfaces, and the Birren color triangle.
• New topics explored include the Luscher Test, color therapy, virtual reality, and cultural differences in the perception of color.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Color is addressed to artists and art students in all media, in both fine and applied arts. It provides an informative but non-dogmatic introduction to the many different approaches to understanding color, including aesthetics, science, psychology, and history. Illustrations for the chapters on color concepts are taken from all media. Special aesthetic and practical considerations for color usage in each medium—such as ways that graphic designers use and specify printers' inks—are also explored. The realities of color use are accentuated by direct quotes from working artists. Technical terms are carefully defined in the text and also in a glossary. Those appearing in the glossary are printed in boldface when first introduced in the text. Special Features of the Fourth Edition

This fourth edition of Color reflects the tremendous range of color choices in the studio and the marketplace. There are now millions of colors available through computer graphics, more than the human eye can even distinguish. The section on computer-generated colors includes the complications of color matching when designers are working with both computer and printing technologies. Color choices in such crafts fields as ceramics, glass, and fibers are also mushrooming as they cross the soft boundary between fine and applied arts. Optical color effects continue to be an area of artistic experimentation, and these are illustrated and discussed in detail.

In the midst of these burgeoning choices, students are given a clear and solid foundation for understanding uses of color. Some 35 lively new images have been added to this edition, from cave paintings to twenty-first century virtual reality installations. Illustrations of points under discussion reflect the great variety in color applications, including historic and contemporary paintings, sculpture, installation pieces, crafts, photographs, advertisements, cartoons, commercial design, computer art, video, architecture, landscape design, interior design, and clothing. The work of women and multicultural art are naturally interwoven throughout the text.

For this edition, new visual demonstrations have been added, such as the effects of different lighting sources, reflective qualities of different surfaces, the Bezold Effect, and the phenomenon of color constancy. There is new material on the emotional and physiological effects of different hues, and on the spatial effects of colors. Cutting-edge virtual reality and video installations are illustrated and discussed. Website design and current printing technologies are included in updated discussions of computer-based art. Technical sections have been modified for greater clarity and ease of understanding. Technical material is provided in ways that can form take-off points for artists' own explorations of the intriguing world of color.

A special characteristic of this book is its extensive use of artists' own words about their use of color. More such quotations have been incorporated into this edition, and a new feature has been added: artists' quotations introducing each chapter.

Another special new feature of this edition is an appendix of Studio Color Problems. These comprise a great treasury of practical experiments with color based on the experiential teaching methods of the great colorist Josef Albers. Those using his experiential method might like to assign the first two chapters of the text to develop a general orientation and a basic vocabulary before launching into studio work, and then continue with the more theoretical and practical material introduced later in the book once students have made some discoveries on their own. Professor Zelanski is a former student of Albers and has found this method highly successful in four decades of teaching. Acknowledgements

Among the many artists in various media with whom we have worked in preparation of this book, we would like to pay a special tribute to the late Arthur Homer. His pioneering work in optical color mixtures is still ahead of its time. We are also grateful to Frank Noelker, the late John Roy, and Janet Cummings Good for their help in cutting-edge color technologies and for supplying outstanding illustrative material.

We are grateful to those professors who reviewed the earlier editions of this book; their suggestions have benefited all editions. Ruth Zelanski and Ron Lambert have helped in locating and providing images.

At Laurence King Publishing, Elisabeth Ingles has served as the enthusiastic and intelligent editor for this edition, and photo researcher Maureen Cowdroy has worked hard to track down new images. Our dear friend Lawrence King has been steadfastly supportive. Norwell F. Therien, our American editor at Prentice Hall, has firm conviction of the value of this book in helping students understand and make full use of the complexities of color.

Annette Zelanski has been of great help, as ever, and we want to express to her our love and appreciation. We owe her a very special debt of gratitude.

Paul Zelanski
Mary Pat Fisher
March 2002

Edition details

• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0130984868
• ISBN 13: 9780130984869
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 4
• Number of pages: 176