The History of a Color
Buch, Englisch, 216 Seiten, Format (B × H): 243 mm x 244 mm, Gewicht: 1230 g
ISBN: 978-0-691-13930-2
Verlag: Princeton University Press
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.
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Weitere Infos & Material
INTRODUCTION 11
IN THE BEGINNING WAS BLACK FROM THE BEGINNING
TO THE YEAR 1000 19
Mythologies of Darkness 21
From Darkness to Colors 24
From Palette to Lexicon 27
Death and Its Color 30
The Black Bird 36
Black, White, Red 39
IN THE DEVIL'S PALETTE
TENTH TO THIRTEENTH CENTURIES 45
The Devil and His Images 47
The Devil and His Colors 51
A Disturbing Bestiary 56
To Dispel the Darkness 60
The Monks? Quarrel: White versus Black 63
A New Color Order: The Coat of Arms 68
Who Was the Black Knight? 72
A FASHIONABLE COLOR
FOURTEENTH TO SIXTEENTH CENTURIES 77
The Colors of the Skin 79
The Christianization of Dark Skin 82
Jesus with the Dyer 88
Dyeing in Black 90
The Color's Moral Code 95
The Luxury of Princes 100
The Gray of Hope 106
THE BIRTH OF THE WORLD IN BLACK AND WHITE
SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 113
Ink and Paper 115
Color in Black and White 119
Hachures and Guillochures 122
The Color War 124
The Protestant Dress Code 130
A Very Somber Century 134
The Return of the Devil 136
New Speculations, New Classifications 140
A New Order of Colors 144
ALL THE COLORS OF BLACK
EIGHTEENTH TO TWENTY-FIRST CENTURIES 151
The Triumph of Color 153
The Age of Enlightenment 159
The Poetics of Melancholy 165
The Age of Coal and Factories 170
Regarding Images 176
A Modern Color 180
A Dangerous Color? 190
NOTES 196
BIBLIOGRAPHY 207
