TY - GEN AU - Gage, John TI - Colour and meaning : art, science and symbolism SN - 9780500282151 U1 - 701.85 PY - 2019/// CY - London PB - Thames & Hudson KW - Color in art KW - Color--Psychological aspects KW - Symbolism in art KW - Aesthetics KW - Art--Technique KW - Color (Philosophy) KW - Color--Physiological effect N1 - Contents Introduction 7 Part One 1 The Contexts of Colour 11 The history of art as a unifying subject • Artefacts and attitudes • The harmony of colours The non-standard observer· Colour in context 2 Colour and Culture 21 Colour-usage and colour-systems • The spectrum and the natural world· 'Basic Color Terms' A disdain for colour • Colour-psychology: chromotherapy and the Luscher Test High culture, popular culture 3 Colour in Art and its Literature 34 The politics of colour • Colour and gender • The formalist tradition · The substance of colour Theories and assumptions • Alberti to Durer • Science into art • Science - 'the taste of all minds' Twentieth-century theory • Colour as content • Colour-change: shot fabric and modelling • Colour and symbol • Reception and response • Theories of harmony • Representing colour • The history of colour Part Two 4 Colour in History - Relative and Absolute 67 Iconography in the early Middle Ages: brightness versus hue • Colour as symbol Red and purple in the scale of colours • Medieval blues • The point of pointillism • The mind of the mosaicist • Atoms and mixtures • The luminous imperative 5 Colour-words and Colour-patches 90 Scribes and spectacles • Nequam's colour-terms • Marginal notes • The medieval palette Red and green: the psychological effects of colour 6 Ghiberti and Light 98 Ghiberti and gemstones • The art of glass • The humanists and light 7 Color Colorado - Cross-cultural Studies in the Ancient Americas 105 'Basic Color Terms' - the problems • Colour-terms and colour-products Colour and direction • The significance of red 8 The Fool's Paradise 121 The hexagonal stone • The reduction of means • The prism in the sixteenth century Scarmiglioni on colour • Glass versus crystal • The spectral colours 9 Newton and Painting 134 Doctrines of mixture • In search of harmony - printing the primaries • The principles of harmony: colour and music • Harmony and complementarity 10 Blake's Newton 144 Adapting Michelangelo • Blake's interest in optics • The material bow 11 Magilphs and Mysteries 153 The lure of Venetian colour • The Secret exposed • The aftermath 12 Turner as a Colourist 162 Local colour • Primaries - the 'colour-beginning' • Light and colour • The relativity of colour 13 'Two Different Worlds' - Runge, Goethe and the Sphere of Colour 169 Goethe and Runge • Steffens, Schiffermiiller and the Farben-Kugel The suppression of symbolism 14 Mood Indigo - From the Blue Flower to the Blue Rider 185 The blue flower • Gendering of blue • An anthropology of colour • Goethe 's following: symbol versus substance • Bocklin and Bezold • Experimental psychology: Fechner and Wundt Kandinsky and blue • Goethe in the twentieth century 15 Chevreul between Classicism and Romanticism 196 Chevreul and Vernet • Painting in fiat tints • Shades of grey 16 The Technique of Seurat - A Reappraisal 209 Seurat 's reading • Painterly experiment • The primacy of Chevreul 17 Seurat's Silence 219 Helmholtzian chromatics • Dubois-Pillet and Hayet • Vibert and science • Indefinable colour 18 Matisse's Black Light 228 Matisse 's Manet • Half a scientist • Dark light 19 Colour as Language in Early Abstract Painting 241 Colour in Theosophy and in Kandinsky • Nature and system The significance of primaries • A language of colour 20 A Psychological Background for Early Modern Colour 249 Kandinsky 's grammar of colour • Delaunay's practical theory Mondrian's primary order, Ostwald's theory of harmony 21 Making Sense of Colour - The Synaesthetic Dimension 261 Perception and deception • The unity ef the senses • Colour and physiology Synaesthesia and aesthetics Acknowledgments 270 Notes to the Text 271 Select Bibliography 306 List of Illustrations 312 Index 315 ER -