Color and Meaning: Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting [Paperback]

Marcia B. Hall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 1994 | ISBN-10: 0521457335 | ISBN-13: 978-0521457330

Recent restoration campaigns, particularly to the Sistine Chapel, have focused attention on the importance of colour in our experience of paintings, but until recently it has been neglected by art historians. The author believes that the work of art can only be fully appreciated when it is regarded as the product of both the artist's hand and mind. This study utilizes the traditional sources, such as contemporary theoretical writings and iconographical analysis, but in addition draws on the scientific findings of the conservation laboratories. This is a new body of data assembled in large part since World War II, which art historians are only beginning to exploit to fill out the history of technique. Rather than writing merely a history of technique, however, the author has integrated this material with traditional approaches to cultural history. She undertakes to examine twenty major paintings of the period from Giotto to Tintoretto to elucidate how colour and technique contribute to their meaning. She gives us then, the first modern consideration of Renaissance paintings both as physical objects and as monuments of cultural history.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

How Renaissance painters used color to unify their pictures, exploit symbolism and achieve emotional expressiveness is the theme of this handsomely illustrated monograph, which focuses on 20 paintings. Hall, an associate professor of art history at Temple University, highlights Leonardo's naturalistic use of shadowy midtones in the Mona Lisa , the way Michelangelo's fleshy hues dynamically link the figures in the Sistine Chapel vault, Titian's predilection for bright, saturated colors to create movement and Piero della Francesca's innovative experiments with oils. Hall makes us realize that, given the Renaissance's limited palette, the harmonious, radiant compositions achieved were marvels indeed. For the Mannerists, she shows, color was just as important as distortions of form in disrupting classical style. This sophisticated study combines traditional analysis with a consideration of recent scientific findings from conservation laboratories.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

With the exception of Venetian colorism, the obviously central role of color in Renaissance painting has been relatively neglected. In this pioneering synthesis, Hall brilliantly conjoins an understanding of the technique and materials employed from the 14th through the 16th centuries with vivid evocations of the role of color within a complex of compositional, expressive, and iconographic requirements. The integral consideration of color as a critical aspect of composition and meaning serves to illuminate and enrich the perception and comprehension of works that are among the major achievements of European painting. Particularly stimulating and valuable are the discussions of works by the greatest High Renaissance masters in terms of self-selected color styles and modal theory. A useful glossary and excellent color reproductions of recently restored paintings complement this essential text. For larger art collections.
- Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (April 29, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521457335
• ISBN-13: 978-0521457330
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,209,482 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must reader for any painter with any interest in painting., April 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Color and Meaning: Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting (Hardcover)

A wonderful read, thorough, focused and all about looking. One of only a few books that truly approaches the idea of painting and its history on its own terms. Mrs Hall beautifully discusses ideas of process as being inextricably bound to the idea of particular meaning. Beginning with painting's early interest in the description of likness and the evocation of literal space, she traces a remarkably plausible chronological development wherein all of what are now the standard conventions of painting are discovered. Mrs Hall has written a book that seems custom built for painters; it is wonderful.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Equilibrium Is Everything!, September 24, 2011

By 

Peter P. Fuchs (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Color and Meaning: Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting (Paperback)

This is the sort of book on art history and analysis that some right-wingers hate. They believe that the aesthetics of religious art of the past should be principally involved with religious meanings. Nothing in this book, to my memory, precludes the possibility of such an analysis. But it allows a lover of great paintings to really understand the the powerful way that the balance in pictures is crucial to their effect. Those with larger amplitudes in aesthetic understanding can discern that some of this notion of balance may have developed in relation to more esoteric or kabbalaistic understandings of balance than those of orthodox Catholicism which actually funded them. Such is the complexity of art history. After I read this book I never looked at a Renaissance painting the same way again, and especially not the one on the cover, which I look at all the time at the National Gallery. Shortly after reading it we took a trip to Italian hilltowns and I felt that I had more powerful eyes. What a splendid work of scholarship. One of the best I have ever read.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT BOOK, September 1, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Color and Meaning: Practice and Theory in Renaissance Painting (Paperback)

I WILL ONLY WRITE, THAT AS A PAINTER, THIS BOOK SERVES TO CREATE NOT ONLY HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF RENAISSANCE PAINTING, BUT ENRICHES THAT HISTORY WITH THOROUGH EVALUATION OF THE CURRENT USE OF SCIENTIFIC/CONSERVATION METHODS TO BETTER UNDERSTAND HOW AN ARTIST'S TECHNIQUE IS INTEGRAL TO UNDERSTANDING THE INTENT OF THE ARTIST AND THE MEANING IN A PIECE OF ARTWORK. IT REPRESENTS AN IMPORTANT BREAKTHROUGH IN MODERN ART HISTORY THROUGH ITS ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN THE IMPORTANCE OF TECHNIQUE, COLOR THEORY, AND THEIR SERVICE TO CONTENT IN THE RENAISSANCE. DR. HALL'S OTHER BOOK (ALSO OUT OF PRINT, ALAS), WHICH IS A SERIES OF ESSAYS BY PEOPLE IN THE FIELD, SHOULD ALSO BE IN PRINT: "COLOR AND TECHNIQUE IN RENAISSANCE PAINTING: ITALY AND THE NORTH".