Description

Book Synopsis

Colour permeates contemporary visual and material culture and affects our senses beyond the superficial encounter by infiltrating our perceptions and memories and becoming deeply rooted in thought processes that categorise and divide along culturally constructed lines. Colour exists as a cultural as well as psycho-physical phenomenon and acquires a multitude of meanings within differing historical and cultural contexts. The contributors examine how colour becomes imbued with specific symbolic and material meanings that tint our constructions of race, gender, ideal bodies, the relationship of the self to others and of the self to technology and the built environment. By highlighting the relationship of colour across media and material culture, this volume reveals the complex interplay of cultural connotations, discursive practices and socio-psychological dynamics of colour in an international context.



Trade Review

The anthology forms part of a critical yet visionary tradition of interdisciplinary studies on colour. [It] shows that much is to be gained by analyzing colour beyond the symbolic. of a collection…and [by] moving beyond entrenched binaries.· Journal of Design History



Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Beyond the Language of Colour
Chris Horrocks

PART I: COLOUR AND VISUAL CULTURE

Chapter 1. Ad Reinhardt: ‘Colour Blinds’
Michael Corris

Chapter 2. The Eye Is a Sphincter (Who’s Afraid of the Postmodern Monochrome?)
Antony Hudek

Chapter 3. Colour Soundings: After the Tone of Francis Bacon
Nicholas Chare

Chapter 4. Capturing the Ephemeral. Colour as a Bridge between Art and Science
Mary Pearce

PART II: COLOUR AND MATERIAL CULTURE

Chapter 5. Colour in Gardens: a question of class or gender?
Beverley Lear

Chapter 6. Critical Remarks on the Colour/Form Relation: Creating a Middle Ground
Kiki Karatheodoris

Chapter 7. Heidegger’s Pixel: Digital Colour as ‘Standing Reserve’
Chris Horrocks

Chapter 8. The Disillusion of the Image: Cinematography, Colour, Sound and Desire
Liz Watkins

PART III: COLOUR, TEXT AND RACE

Chapter 9. Chromatic Ambivalence: Colouring the Albino
Charlotte Baker

Chapter 10. Toussaint Louverture and Haitian Historiography: A Pigmentocratic Approach
Charles Forsdick

Chapter 11. “Linda Morenita”: Skin Colour, Beauty and the Politics of Mestizaje in Mexico
Monica Moreno

Index

Cultures of Colour

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      Publisher: Berghahn Books
      Publication Date: 6/1/2012 12:00:00 AM
      ISBN13: 9780857454645, 978-0857454645
      ISBN10: 0857454641
      Also in:
      Material culture

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      Colour permeates contemporary visual and material culture and affects our senses beyond the superficial encounter by infiltrating our perceptions and memories and becoming deeply rooted in thought processes that categorise and divide along culturally constructed lines. Colour exists as a cultural as well as psycho-physical phenomenon and acquires a multitude of meanings within differing historical and cultural contexts. The contributors examine how colour becomes imbued with specific symbolic and material meanings that tint our constructions of race, gender, ideal bodies, the relationship of the self to others and of the self to technology and the built environment. By highlighting the relationship of colour across media and material culture, this volume reveals the complex interplay of cultural connotations, discursive practices and socio-psychological dynamics of colour in an international context.



      Trade Review

      The anthology forms part of a critical yet visionary tradition of interdisciplinary studies on colour. [It] shows that much is to be gained by analyzing colour beyond the symbolic. of a collection…and [by] moving beyond entrenched binaries.· Journal of Design History



      Table of Contents

      Acknowledgements

      Introduction: Beyond the Language of Colour
      Chris Horrocks

      PART I: COLOUR AND VISUAL CULTURE

      Chapter 1. Ad Reinhardt: ‘Colour Blinds’
      Michael Corris

      Chapter 2. The Eye Is a Sphincter (Who’s Afraid of the Postmodern Monochrome?)
      Antony Hudek

      Chapter 3. Colour Soundings: After the Tone of Francis Bacon
      Nicholas Chare

      Chapter 4. Capturing the Ephemeral. Colour as a Bridge between Art and Science
      Mary Pearce

      PART II: COLOUR AND MATERIAL CULTURE

      Chapter 5. Colour in Gardens: a question of class or gender?
      Beverley Lear

      Chapter 6. Critical Remarks on the Colour/Form Relation: Creating a Middle Ground
      Kiki Karatheodoris

      Chapter 7. Heidegger’s Pixel: Digital Colour as ‘Standing Reserve’
      Chris Horrocks

      Chapter 8. The Disillusion of the Image: Cinematography, Colour, Sound and Desire
      Liz Watkins

      PART III: COLOUR, TEXT AND RACE

      Chapter 9. Chromatic Ambivalence: Colouring the Albino
      Charlotte Baker

      Chapter 10. Toussaint Louverture and Haitian Historiography: A Pigmentocratic Approach
      Charles Forsdick

      Chapter 11. “Linda Morenita”: Skin Colour, Beauty and the Politics of Mestizaje in Mexico
      Monica Moreno

      Index

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