Colour and Culture

Colour and Culture by John Gage is a groundbreaking, award-winning analysis of colour in Western culture, spanning from the ancient Greeks to the late twentieth century. It is authored by one of the most foremost experts on the subject.

What does the language of colour tell us? Where does one colour begin and another end? Is it a radiant visual stimulus, an intangible function of light, or a material substance to be moulded and arrayed? Colour is fundamental to art, yet so diverse that it has hardly ever been studied comprehensively.

Art historian John Gage considers every conceivable aspect of the subject in this detailed examination of colour in Western culture. Gage describes the first theories of colour, articulated by Greek philosophers, and the subsequent attempts by the Romans and their Renaissance disciples to organize it systematically or endow it with symbolic power. He unfolds its religious significance and its use in heraldry, as well as how Renaissance artists approached colour with the help of alchemists.

He explores the analysis of the spectrum undertaken by Newton and continued in the nineteenth century by artists such as Seurat. Gage traces the influence of Goethe's colour theory and considers the extraordinary theories and practices that attempted to unite colour and music, or make colour into an entirely abstract language of its own.

This study is the first-ever undertaking to suggest answers to many perennial questions about the role of colour in Western art and thought. It throws fresh light on the hidden meanings of many familiar masterpieces.