Synopsis
Gage looks at the use of color in civilization and art through different time periods and discusses such topics as the use of color to express sound and theories about color's source
Reviews
In this searching, dazzlingly illustrated investigation of the experience of color in the West, Cambridge University art historian Gage explores color as a language of emotions, psychological meaning and religious significance. His 14 scholarly yet accessible essays, accompanied by 223 plates (more than half of which are in color), are full of arcane and wondrous lore, from ancient Rome's cult of purple (a hue associated with the ruling elite) to the symbology of rainbows, perceived correspondences between colors and music, and color symbolism in heraldry and alchemy. Certain themes re-emerge, such as the impact of color scientists Goethe and Newton on artists like Turner and Surat, and the popular notion of the Orient as a repository of colored, exotic stimuli and attitudes. The magnificent plates range from a fourth-century Egyptian mummy portrait to the color experiments of Kandinsky, Mondrian, Helen Frankenthaler, Sonia Delaunay, Kenneth Noland and Josef Albers.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Color is such an integral part of our visual, emotional, and aesthetic experiences that we hardly know how to study it within a cultural context. Gage, a British art historian and an expert on color and the painter J. M. W. Turner, has written a seminal, in-depth history of the perception and use of color in Western civilization and art. Gage covers everything from theories about color's source, divinity, and meaning to the palettes of various artists and the use of color to express sound. Proceeding chronologically from the art of antiquity to twentieth-century abstract painting, Gage explains how artists in different eras perceived color and developed techniques to harness it in their work for the attainment of myriad effects. In fluid, if reference-rich and often-technical, prose, Gage analyzes the use of color in Greek sculpture, early Christian mosaics, stained-glass windows, heraldry, and the work of Titian and Leonardo da Vinci, to name just a few of this large, well-illustrated volume's dozens of challenging topics. He also tackles the theories of Newton and Goethe and discusses such trends as the Romantics' fascination with rainbows. A truly far-reaching, inclusive, and trailblazing achievement. Donna Seaman
This book contains everything you wanted to know about color as a cultural construct, physical and optical property, and theoretical problem. Gage (art, Cambridge Univ.; J.M.W. Turner , LJ 7/87) has ranged very widely and come up with an extremely inclusive book dealing with nearly every Western, historical, and perceptual aspect of color. Trained at the Courtauld Institute of Art, Gage has an artist's direct sense of color and communicates it well in his writing, even when the illustration is in black and white. He has written a fascinating survey of this universal--but very subjective--aspect of art; no other title compares in depth and scope to this work. Recommended for general collections as well as for specialists, who will find much of interest in Gage's bibliographical excavations and careful looking.
- Jack Perry Brown, Art Inst. of Chicago Lib.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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