By Alexandra Loske, Sarah Lowengard
Gathering over 65 rare books and manuscripts from a wealth of institutions, including the most distinguished color collections worldwide, The Book of Colour Concepts takes the reader on a chromatic odyssey across four centuries.
A kaleidoscope through time
From the 17th century to the advent of the digital age, color theories have been illustrated with opulent wheels, polychrome charts, and meticulous diagrams. Gathering over 65 works from around the world, with more than 1,000 images, this edition traces the many hues of a subject that inspired Newton, Goethe, Sanzō Wada, the Bauhaus, and many more.
The earliest forms of human creativity – in carvings, markings, and cave paintings – bear witness to humanity’s engagement with color. Almost as old as these examples is the desire to assign structure, order, and meaning to this universal yet elusive concept, and it is this fascination that unites the works compiled in this expansive edition.
Over 1,000 images of luscious wheels and globes, painstakingly collated charts, and meticulous diagrams, many of them newly photographed exclusively for this edition.
Some of these concepts provide exhaustive taxonomies of color, while others reflect upon the relationship of color and music, or the affinities between color and human emotions.
The human history of color, in two sweeping volumes
Seminal works of color theory, such as Isaac Newton’s Opticks and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s hugely significant Zur Farbenlehre, are shown alongside rare and unfamiliar contributions, including the theosophical color systems of Charles Webster Leadbeater and Annie Besant, the comprehensive color ‘dictionary’ of Aloys John Maerz and Morris Rea Paul, and the patchwork combinations of the Japanese costume designer and artist Sanzō Wada.
The two volumes also bring many intriguing and often overlooked works by women into the spotlight, including the radically inventive color “blots” of the English flower painter Mary Gartside and a botanical notebook by the pionieering spiritualist Hilma af Klint.
The color systems that make up this edition are contextualized by introductory essays from editor Alexandra Loske and co-author Sarah Lowengard, while authoritative texts from the editor on the works reproduced set out each concept in further detail.
Illuminating the history of color in all its shapes and forms, The Book of Colour Concepts offers a chromatic chronology unparalleled in scope.
The Book of Colour Concepts – Volume 1
The Book of Colour Concepts – Volume 2
The Authors
[The Editor] Dr Alexandra Loske is an art historian, writer, and museum curator. The subject of her doctoral thesis was the use of color in the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, where she is now curator. She has a particular interest in the role of women in color history. This research is supported by the University of Sussex, where Alexandra is a Research Associate.In 2024 Alexandra published the first monograph on Mary Gartside, a pioneering color theorist and abstract artist, who was the first known women in western culture to have published an illustrated book on color (in 1805).
Alexandra has lectured and published widely about color and other topics. Her book Color – A Visual History (2019, Ilex/Tate/Smithsonian Institute) (Affiliate link), has been translated into German and French. She is the editor of a volume on Color in the 19th century for The Bloomsbury Cultural History of Color (Bloomsbury Academic, 2021) (Affiliate link), a large, multi-lingual double-volume on colour for TASCHEN (The Book of Colour Concepts, 2024). She is currently working on a book about the Royal Pavilion (to be published by Yale University Press).
[The Contributing Author] Sarah Lowengard is a historian of technology and science who writes about practical and philosophical engagements with color. A practicing art conservator for more than 40 years and an artisan color-maker for even longer, Lowengard is a member of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Cooper Union in New York City, and maintains affiliation with several technical art history and analytical art organizations in the United States and abroad.Product details:
Publisher: Taschen America Llc; Multilingual edition (May 5, 2024)
Language: Multilingual (English, French, German, Spanish)
Hardcover: 846 pages
ISBN-10: 3836595656
ISBN-13: 978-3836595650
Item Weight: 13.56 pounds
Order on Amazon (Affiliate link)
All images courtesy of Taschen.
(This article includes affiliate links.)
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