Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color

Apart from the run on sentences this book is a detailed look into art and it’s beginnings

That the materials affect the art seems to be the theme that tries to tie together the disparate parts of this rambling volume.We sometimes assume that at least since the middle ages artists have been able to paint in an almost infinite number of colors, and that at least until modern times they always tried to use colors that reproduced reality as closely as possible. As Ball explains, neither assumption is true. Even as recently as 100 years or so ago, artists' palettes were constrained by the inability to produce reliable pigment of any desired color. Medieval painters had relatively few paints and tended -- as modern artists at times also have -- to select colors based on their cost. Only the development of artificial dies and pigments, primarily in the nineteenth century, has freed artists to create almost any color they wish -- and has helped turn the focus of art from form to color. The book illustrates these points with a number of well-reproduced color plates.Ball also includes chapters on the techniques of printing, photography, and art conservation. While these are interesting, they wander from the major subject of the book and the discussion of photography, especially, is somewhat technical and tedious.But this is not overall a technical treatise. Ball's real interest is art and his book is at heart an art appreciation course. This is both its strength and its weakness. That it tells the history of pigments in the context of the history of art and of artists is what makes it of interest to someone other than an industrial chemist. Unfortunately, from the time he reaches the Impressionists Ball talks more and more about art, less and less about pigments, until the book becomes almost pure art appreciation. We get extended discussions of the Impressionists and the Fauvists and the this-ists and that-ists, lists of many paintings very few of which are available in the color plates, but only passing mention of pigments and materials. Judged on an art basis alone this is not a particularly good book. Its art appreciation is of the gushing, exhibition-catalog sort; you know things are going downhill when you read a sentence like "Impressionism was a movement motivated by the ineluctability of artistic integrity and by the artist's need to search rather than slavishly to follow." (In fairness, Ball's prose is generally pretty good, which makes the occasional klunker like that stand out.)The story of art materials is an interesting one, though, and is well told for much of the book. "Bright Earth" deserves three-and-a-half stars but since I have to choose it seems closer to four than to three.

I'm not certain what I expected of this book. I was hoping for something like Victoria Finlay's COLOR, in which she travels the world looking for the sources of the colors used in art (ochre in Australia, etc.) This was a little different: Ball traces the use of colors used by artists and how artists of the past pretty much had to know more than a little chemistry to mix their own colors, since they didn't come ready-made by Winsor and Newton. Indeed, the artists' apprentices first task as apprentices was to learn how to grind and mix color.Ball goes back to the Egyptians' love of colored glass, but most of the book is involved in talking about the classic artists (Da Vinci, Raphael, Vermeer, Rubens, etc.) and the mediums and colors they used: the pigments mixed differently if you were using fresco and if you were using tempera and if you were using oils, and sometimes the color you needed simply didn't exist yet. Blues were not only hard to come by, but expensive due to the fact that they came from precious stones, and were saved for the paintings of saints that were considered the most important thing to portray for many years.He also covers the concept of color, and how some societies do not have names for certain colors (the Vietnamese and Korean languages, for instance, do not differentiate between green and blue; the medieval color sinople could refer to red or green), the minerals and plants and even insects that produce different colors, how palettes changed from the medieval era to the present, and how manufactured colors revolutionized the artists' palette.It ended up being fascinating reading even if it wasn't what I expected.

As a professional artist and instructor, I decided to embark on a study of colors and pigments and their evolution into the modern paints we use today. I searched for books on pigments, how they are made into colors and the history and evolution from ancient to modern times. Each book I found seemed to focus in on one aspect or another - each answered some of my questions but not all. There were books with formulas for paint, books that spoke of the origin of color, books on Alchemy, and books on the symbolic cultural use of color.This book is a comprehensive survey and systematic study of the materials that make up the pigments we use today - not only as artists but throughout our society as a whole. Written by an author who is both scholar and chemist, I have found the book a fascinating journey. It touches on just about every aspect having to do with colors: origin, history, economic concerns, manufacture, chemical composition, why certain colors work together and why some don't (chemically), symbolism in use or certain colors, color theory, the discovery of synthetic color, dyeing, printmaking and photography.Because it touched on all of these areas - it allowed me to actually know what "questions to ask" and then to figure out what areas I wanted to pursue further. Another very important aspect is that Philip Ball has written a history of art from the perspective of the artist evolving with the evolution of art materials.There are some technical areas in the book - specifically chemical - that will be a little over the average readers head, but those areas can easily be skimmed over. After reading it, you'll know why I think this book is worth its weight in ultramarine!

For anyone wanting to dig behind the word 'colour', this book paints a much needed picture of the whats & whys of this subject. It's an interesting rather than a heavy read, tackling the question of why this subject hasn't been covered more in art history. And written from a chemist's point of view (but a chemist who understands artists and the place that colour has in our arsenal) but without the heart stopping formulas which belong to this world. I'm a painter learning how to use oils, so this book is supplying a great deal of information for which I was searching. Philip Ball, the author, references others that I already have on my bookshelf, so I know I'm on the right track. Highly recommended for anyone searching for what colour is and why.

Very interesting book! An "history of art" from a different point of view to understand how the materials influence not only the art technology but also the the ideas. A great attention is assigned to the new pigments introduced during the XIX century and the visual revolution that these new colors created in the artistic movements.

Excelente livro.

Just what I needed.