An encyclopaedic work on color in Western art and culture from the Middle Ages to Post-Modernism.

The contributions to this book are dedicated to the heritage of the Ottoman Empire and the Austro- Hungarian Monarchy in the Orient and Occident. The book presents current research concerning the historical, political and cultural impact of this legacy and gives an overview of comparative approaches to Balkan and Ottoman studies.

"John Gage's Color and Meaning is full of ideas. . .He is one of the best writers on art now alive."--A. S. Byatt, Booker Prize winner

A Cultural History of Color in Antiquity covers the period 3000 BCE to 500 CE. Although the smooth, white marbles of Classical sculpture and architecture lull us into thinking that the color world of the ancient Greeks and Romans was restrained and monochromatic, nothing could be further from the truth. Classical archaeologists are rapidly uncovering and restoring the vivid, polychrome nature of the ancient built environment. At the same time, new understandings of ancient color cognition and language have unlocked insights into the ways – often unfamiliar and strange to us – that ancient peoples thought and spoke about color. Color shapes an individual's experience of the world and also how society gives particular spaces, objects, and moments meaning. The 6 volume set of the Cultural History of Color examines how color has been created, traded, used, and interpreted over the last 5000 years. The themes covered in each volume are color philosophy and science; color technology and trade; power and identity; religion and ritual; body and clothing; language and psychology; literature and the performing arts; art; architecture and interiors; and artefacts. David Wharton is Associate Professor of Classical Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA. Volume 1 in the Cultural History of Color set. General Editors: Carole P. Biggam and Kirsten Wolf

A kaleidoscopic exploration that traverses history, literature, art, and science to reveal humans' unique and vibrant relationship with color. We have an extraordinary connection to color—we give it meanings, associations, and properties that last millennia and span cultures, continents, and languages. In The World According to Color, James Fox takes seven elemental colors—black, red, yellow, blue, white, purple, and green—and uncovers behind each a root idea, based on visual resemblances and common symbolism throughout history. Through a series of stories and vignettes, the book then traces these meanings to show how they morphed and multiplied and, ultimately, how they reveal a great deal about the societies that produced them: reflecting and shaping their hopes, fears, prejudices, and preoccupations. Fox also examines the science of how our eyes and brains interpret light and color, and shows how this is inherently linked with the meanings we give to hue. And using his background as an art historian, he explores many of the milestones in the history of art—from Bronze Age gold-work to Turner, Titian to Yves Klein—in a fresh way. Fox also weaves in literature, philosophy, cinema, archaeology, and art—moving from Monet to Marco Polo, early Japanese ink artists to Shakespeare and Goethe to James Bond. By creating a new history of color, Fox reveals a new story about humans and our place in the universe: second only to language, color is the greatest carrier of cultural meaning in our world.