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Thursday, February 29, 2024
At More Than 800 Pages, 'The Book of Colour Concepts' Revels in Four Centuries of Chromatic Wonders
Colossal: We perceive color everywhere. Although it’s omnipresent, the concept is challenging to describe, in part because color itself is not an inherent property of matter. Our brains perceive hues through photoreceptor cells in our eyes, often called cones, that allow us to discern the visible light spectrum—think of a rainbow or a prism.
5 comments:
Delaney Price
said...
Gosh, I would love to read this book. During a Basic Design project, I discovered Hunt Library’s row of books on color theory and have been a frequenter of the 4th floor since. While I realistically won’t purchase this book because of its hefty price and massive size compared to my shoebox dorm, I find reading about color to be so calming. Seeing how we perceive color, alongside how color melds and has been used all across our society is intrinsically so interesting. As someone very interested in lighting, I’m intrigued by the possibilities that color adds to our work. While color cannot be the only design tool used, it is imperative to good design and books like these are so effective. Having a physical copy of a trusted source as opposed to searching the web for sources is so much more efficient. As someone hoping to eventually to have a design library, I’m glad design anthologies are still being published.
I thought this article was fascinating, I have always loved color theory, and wish I had more time to study it and appreciate it. I can remember in upper elementary school was my first introduction to color mixing but it was very basic. Throughout middle and high school my teachers would touch on it but never really go into the theory behind it. In my senior year I took an interior design seminar and that was probably my first true introduction to the actual theory of it. I found it incredibly fascinating. I also had the opportunity to study it a little in my psychology class which was actually in some ways more interesting, but I am a sucker for psychology. I wish that this book was not so expensive because I would love to read it, although in reality I am not sure I have the time, considering my schedule.
I think I just found a new book to go on my list of books that I will likely never get, but would adore if I did manage to get a copy. The history of colors and the like have always been an extremely interesting read to me, and I love the newer, better color combinations I find I can make after I finish such a read. On a less deep level, these books are also just really fun to look at. Because they’re made by artists for artists, they are always so well-thought out and beautiful to look at. Color is something that can influence us so deeply, but yet it so rarely is acknowledged for its power in anything stronger than making us go “ooh pretty”. I think that the depth of information needed to get in order to reach over 800 pages worth of information is so exciting.
Oh My Goodness! This is truly stunning and incredible. I just want to stare at these pictures for hours. I want to look at every single little detail and absorb it all in. These pictures are truly breath taking and I am so sad that all 800 pages are not in this article because I would look at all of them. I know that would defeat the purpose of buying the book but still I would have liked a few more images because they are just gorgeous and so so interesting. It is so cool to be able to look back and understand why we have the color associations that we do and how they came to be and to go back and see how they were playing with color back then and how similar and different it was to how we play with color now. And to take that information and apply it to our designs.
If you’d asked me a year ago I would’ve said no way you can write an 800 page book about color, it’s really not that deep. However, it turns out it really is that deep and you can probably write even more than 800 pages on just color. I would love to read this book. I’m really interested in how the meaning of color has changed over time and what changed those associations. For instance why is Red profit and green loss in China while in the US it’s reversed. How did that come about? I don’t know, I wonder if anybody does. If I were to find that information it would be in this absolutely colossal book on color. I’m also really interested in the old drawings about color. I think it will be interesting to see how our portrayal of color and the color wheel has changed over time.
5 comments:
Gosh, I would love to read this book. During a Basic Design project, I discovered Hunt Library’s row of books on color theory and have been a frequenter of the 4th floor since. While I realistically won’t purchase this book because of its hefty price and massive size compared to my shoebox dorm, I find reading about color to be so calming. Seeing how we perceive color, alongside how color melds and has been used all across our society is intrinsically so interesting. As someone very interested in lighting, I’m intrigued by the possibilities that color adds to our work. While color cannot be the only design tool used, it is imperative to good design and books like these are so effective. Having a physical copy of a trusted source as opposed to searching the web for sources is so much more efficient. As someone hoping to eventually to have a design library, I’m glad design anthologies are still being published.
I thought this article was fascinating, I have always loved color theory, and wish I had more time to study it and appreciate it. I can remember in upper elementary school was my first introduction to color mixing but it was very basic. Throughout middle and high school my teachers would touch on it but never really go into the theory behind it. In my senior year I took an interior design seminar and that was probably my first true introduction to the actual theory of it. I found it incredibly fascinating. I also had the opportunity to study it a little in my psychology class which was actually in some ways more interesting, but I am a sucker for psychology. I wish that this book was not so expensive because I would love to read it, although in reality I am not sure I have the time, considering my schedule.
I think I just found a new book to go on my list of books that I will likely never get, but would adore if I did manage to get a copy. The history of colors and the like have always been an extremely interesting read to me, and I love the newer, better color combinations I find I can make after I finish such a read. On a less deep level, these books are also just really fun to look at. Because they’re made by artists for artists, they are always so well-thought out and beautiful to look at. Color is something that can influence us so deeply, but yet it so rarely is acknowledged for its power in anything stronger than making us go “ooh pretty”. I think that the depth of information needed to get in order to reach over 800 pages worth of information is so exciting.
Oh My Goodness! This is truly stunning and incredible. I just want to stare at these pictures for hours. I want to look at every single little detail and absorb it all in. These pictures are truly breath taking and I am so sad that all 800 pages are not in this article because I would look at all of them. I know that would defeat the purpose of buying the book but still I would have liked a few more images because they are just gorgeous and so so interesting. It is so cool to be able to look back and understand why we have the color associations that we do and how they came to be and to go back and see how they were playing with color back then and how similar and different it was to how we play with color now. And to take that information and apply it to our designs.
If you’d asked me a year ago I would’ve said no way you can write an 800 page book about color, it’s really not that deep. However, it turns out it really is that deep and you can probably write even more than 800 pages on just color. I would love to read this book. I’m really interested in how the meaning of color has changed over time and what changed those associations. For instance why is Red profit and green loss in China while in the US it’s reversed. How did that come about? I don’t know, I wonder if anybody does. If I were to find that information it would be in this absolutely colossal book on color. I’m also really interested in the old drawings about color. I think it will be interesting to see how our portrayal of color and the color wheel has changed over time.
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