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Books : Black: The History of a ColorIn association with Amazon.com List Price: $35.00 Amazon.com's Price: $23.10 You Save: $11.90 (34%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 155.91145 EAN: 9780691139302 ISBN: 069113930X Label: Princeton University Press Manufacturer: Princeton University Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 216 Publication Date: November 16, 2008 Publisher: Princeton University Press Studio: Princeton University Press Sales Rank: 27444 Related Items:
Editorial Review: Product Description: Black--favorite color of priests and penitents, artists and ascetics, fashion designers and fascists--has always stood for powerfully opposed ideas: authority and humility, sin and holiness, rebellion and conformity, wealth and poverty, good and bad. In this beautiful and richly illustrated book, the acclaimed author of Blue now tells the fascinating social history of the color black in Europe. In the beginning was black, Michel Pastoureau tells us. The archetypal color of darkness and death, black was associated in the early Christian period with hell and the devil but also with monastic virtue. In the medieval era, black became the habit of courtiers and a hallmark of royal luxury. Black took on new meanings for early modern Europeans as they began to print words and images in black and white, and to absorb Isaac Newton's announcement that black was no color after all. During the romantic period, black was melancholy's friend, while in the twentieth century black (and white) came to dominate art, print, photography, and film, and was finally restored to the status of a true color. For Pastoureau, the history of any color must be a social history first because it is societies that give colors everything from their changing names to their changing meanings--and black is exemplary in this regard. In dyes, fabrics, and clothing, and in painting and other art works, black has always been a forceful--and ambivalent--shaper of social, symbolic, and ideological meaning in European societies. With its striking design and compelling text, Black will delight anyone who is interested in the history of fashion, art, media, or design. Average Rating:
 Rating: - Rich and deepBlack: The History of a Color looks remarkably like a coffee table book--large format hardcover; gorgeous color reproductions of paintings, sculptures, engravings; nice layouts--but don't be fooled. The text is not just for flipping through. Michel Pastoureau, who previously wrote Blue: The History of a Color, explains at the beginning that he is not intending to continue a franchise through all the major colors, partly because the history of each color is too interconnected with all the others.That ... Read More Browse for similar items by category:
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