Heinrich Zollinger

Color: A Multidisciplinary Approach

ISBN: 3-906390-18-7
Hardcover
268 pages
December 1999

Description

Who is not attracted, fascinated or even amazed by the world of colors? First of all there are the painters of course, but also biologists and mineralogists are interested in colors of the living and the inorganic, 'dead', world. There are neuroscientists, psychologists and ophthalmologists, who study the sensation of color vision and the processing of color stimuli in the eye and the brain. Physicists and chemists investigate color science, i.e. the various causes of color. Interior designers know how the colors of furniture and textiles can influence our condition. In all cultures, colors play a central role due to their symbolic content. All Languages have special terms to describe colors and colorfulness. Visual artists play with colors to reflect the world, perhaps to alienate it, and to give us an idea of their personal point of view. Many other examples of the influence of colors on our daily life, our culture could be found...

The 'exact' science cannot understand color phenomena. This really fascinating book, written in a style that is understandable for an interested layman, deals with all the varied facets of this subject.

 Index

1. Preface

2. Contents

3. INTRODUCTION
   What do we Mean by Color?
   Historical Survey

4. PHYSICS OF LIGHT AND COLOR
   The Nature (Theory) of Light
   Color by Refraction: Newton's Experiments
   Color of the Rainbow
   Peacock's Colors, a Phenomenon of Interference
   How Many Causes of Color do we Know?

5. CHEMISTRY OF COLOR
   History of Colorants
   Inorganic Pigments
   Organic Colorants
   Correlations between Chemical Structure and Color of Chemical Compounds

6. COLORIMETRY
   Color Measurements
   Color -Harmony or Contrasts?

7. HOW DO WE SEE COLORS
   Perception and Cognition of Color
   Anatomy of the Human Eye
   Photochemistry of the Retina
   What does the Eye tell the Brain?
   Psychophysical Investigations on Color Vision
   Color Vision of Animals

8. HOW DO WE NAME COLORS?
   From Color Chemistry to Color Linguistics
   The Phenomenon (Prodigy) of Human Language
   Categorization of the Color Space by Color Naming
   Color and Phonological Universals
   Cultural Influence on Color Naming

9. COLOR IN ART AND IN OTHER CULTURAL ACTIVITIES
   Color in European Art from Antiquity to Gothic
   From Renaissance to Neo-Impressionism
   Art in the 20th Century
   Color in the Art of Non-European Culture: The Case of Japan
   Color in Psychology
   Goethe's 'Farbenlehre'
   Sound-Color Synesthesia

10. Epilogue

11. Acknowledgements

12. Author Index

13. Subject Index

Reviews

However, these criticisms do not detract significantly from the usefulness of the book and the stimulating ideas that it offers. Unfortunately the high price of the book is a matter for concern, especially since it is not meant to be a specialized book with a small readership. Certainly this does not reflect the author s intentions, nor does the wasteful style of page layout, in which the text occupies only 40 %of the space. The rest of the space has been used for illustrations in only about 1/7 of all pages, and five pages are left completely blank. Nevertheless, the book is highly recommended to everybody who is not deterred by its price and has interests in the general area of color.
Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2001, 40, 1550.