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77 of 79 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Diverting re-imaging of art history, February 24, 2002
This review is from: Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color (Hardcover)
Philip Ball presents us with the thesis that the coloring materials available to painters have constrained and inspired them down through the whole history of Western art, and that understanding how each of those materials appeared, and how artists and their patrons received them, has a surprising degree of explanatory power. He amply supports this modest thesis. But fortunately for the reader, he is less interested in pushing a point than in telling a story. It's also a stroke of our good fortune that he rambles as he tells it. Ball is first of all an accomplished science writer, but his interests are very wide. Yes, he tells us all we need to know about the physics of light, and the inorganic and organic chemistry that have made the painter's palette steadily more vibrant with the passing centuries. He also gives us the technology behind the colors, and with this book as a key one might, if one had to, reconstruct many of the most important, and often closely guarded, color recipes of the ancients and the Old Masters. But he also limns the rise and fall of many of the strongest currents in Western art; painting's interaction with religion and commerce, and how its schools rose and fell and squabbled. Nor does he neglect philology; I loved learning where all those strange names on the tubes of oil paint come from. The secret life of pigments is a rich subject, of which Ball has clearly made himself a master. Fascinating facts and boldly drawn connections tumble after one another, and there's not a single ounce of padding anywhere. You'll learn what "cobalt" blue has to do with Kobolds: miners in Saxony who dug cobalt-zinc oxides for the color felt the ore to be in league against them with the wicked spirits of the mines, because it ate away their hands and feet if they weren't careful to keep them dry. You'll learn why the Virgin Mary came to be dressed in blue; the tradeoffs a Renaissance artist had to make deciding whether to work in tempera, size, oils, or "distemper"; how old paintmakers' recipe books provide a Rosetta stone into some of the arcane symbolism of the alchemists; how the philosophical war between Florence and Venice over the relative virtues of color and line may have been influenced by Venice's shipbuilding industry; what Seurat was trying to accomplish with all those tiny dots, why he was able to attract an entire school of pointillists to his cause, and why it failed. There are chapters on the physiology of color perception and the physics of color, on how colors deteriorate and what can and can't be done to restore them, on the invention and refinement of photography and color printing. But for all the byways he pursues, Ball never strays far from the thread of his main narrative: the accelerating pursuit of new materials, so that the colors on the physical surface can more brightly and accurately reflect the colors in the painter's mental eye. It's worth noting that, compared to conventional pictures of art history, the one that emerges here is curiously foreshortened: since most of the colors on the palette have appeared since 1850, the Impressionists mark the midpoint of this version of the story. There's so much here that almost every reader will find new and diverting ideas, whether their initial interest is in art, or in chemistry, or in cultural history. Not everything that dazzles illuminates; but "Bright Earth" does both.
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31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
La cage aux fauves....., March 30, 2002
This review is from: Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color (Hardcover)
In BRIGHT EARTH, Philip Ball says, in the early 20th Century, Louis Vauxcelles, the art critic, on viewing Florentine-inspired sculptures standing in the midst of an exhibit of paintings that included the works of Matisse, Kandinsky, Braque, and others of their ilk is reported to have said, "Look, Donatello in a cage of wild beasts" (dans la cage aux fauves)--giving this group of artists the sobriquet by which they are known. Vauxcelles comment was prompted by his reaction to what he perceived to be an enthusiastic use of colors. Ball says the Fauvists were inspired by Van Gogh and Gauguin--the late impressionists, and in turn they inspired Picasso and the modern art movement of the 20th Century which Ball says was largely driven by color. I had read Vauxcelles' comment elsewhere, but in Ball's retelling, the quip makes complete sense. The cages are the framed canvases. The colors are wild like the exotic beasts brought to Europe from faraway places. These colors were virtually unknown before the late 19th Century and the rise of the petrochemical industry. Like Van Gogh and Gauguin before and Picasso after the Fauvists used these pigments in unnatural ways. Generally, art histories divert one into a discussion about lighting, atmosphere, iconography, brush stokes, or composition. Color is discussed but usually as an adjunct or afterthought. In BRIGHT EARTH, color IS the organizing principle--and it makes all the difference. The light in Monet's boating scene bounces off the water because the waves are composed of tiny flecks of violet and yellow. Van Gogh's Sunflowers have the tone they do because he liked to experiment with color and he used an unstable lemon-yellow pigment that has deteriorated over time. Rembrandt was brilliant not only because he created classic compositions and used deft brush strokes to do so, but because he understood how to use pigments that would stand the test of time. What is color? I once visited a museum in Chicago which had an interior room filled with white canvases. Each canvas may have had a small black mark on it, I don't remember. What I remember is a completely white room which was supposed to be devoid of stimulation--but I found the room very stimulating. Is white a color or isn't it? Ball debates both sides of this argument. I find it amusing that over the millenia, artists, weavers, and other have found the non-color white one of the most difficult colors to acquire. Ball says that at the end of the 20th Century, the nine-volume publication entitled, "Color Index International", includes 9,000 pages of "colorants" and the pigment produced in the greatest numbers is white. White is the most "widely preferred veneer for our synthethic environment." One has only to think of paper towels, napkins, toliet paper, toothpaste, bread, and a variety of material goods that are made white so that consumers will buy them. BRIGHT EARTH is an incredible and comprehensive book covering painting from Altimira to Hockney, pigments from Madder Red to Cadmium Red, art works from Greek vases to Miro tapestries, and chemicals from organics such as Woad and Indigo, to the enamels used by artists who no longer can be divided into categories such as scuplter, painter, weaver. Ball has skillfully handled a plethora of complex material. He is an incredibly well organized researcher and this is a well written book. I have only one criticism of Ball's book. In his effort to concentrate on color relative to the visual arts of painting, photography, and print making, he has failed to include much material about textiles (some, but it won't be enough if this is your medium), and he virtually omits discussion of ceramics and pottery, and garden design. Because of this, he cannot clearly frame the future of art which most assuredly will include both visual and tactile dimensions. In Ball's defense, if he had covered these other arts his book would have been 9,000 pages long and filled nine volumes.
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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cinnabar, Orpiment, Lapis lazuli, Ocher, Realgar, May 4, 2002
This review is from: Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color (Hardcover)
Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color by Philip Ball is an amazing mix of color, art, chemistry, and mineralogy. Ball takes the reader on a field trip through the history of pigments and the paintings painted with them, with a strong emphasis on the chemistry that he knows well. The underlying thesis of the book is that the pigments available at a particular moment in history had a strong influence on the art made with them and, based on extensive empirical evidence presented in the book, I would say that Ball has made his case. If you aren't prepared for large amounts of well-written detail, stay away from this book. As a geologist turned high school chemistry and earth science teacher with a love of art, I found much to like about Bright Earth. My only complaint is that the book makes mention of hundreds of works of art, but only presents pictures of a small precentage of them. This book would benefit from a coffee table-type treatment with a more extensive gallery of the mentioned works of art. That said, the book is far enough past 4 stars to give it a full 5.
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