READ THIS: GREEN The History of a Color by Michel Pastoureau Our Coverage Sponsored by Maine Woolens
Jane Fonda
Michel Pastoureau is back with GREEN—the third in his ongoing series on the history of color in the West from classical antiquity to today
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First published in French in 2013, Green: The History of a Color makes its American debut on September 10, 2014 thanks to the superb work of Princeton University Press. Peachy Deegan could not be more excited to read about her favorite color, and her love for it now transcends being Irish and being native to the green and blue of the Hartford Whalers. Did you know Green is the color of destiny? We absolutely loved this book and we didn't merely read it, we read it twice.
Colors are not just colors: they have a history and we can't imagine it ever being superseded by anything more than what Michel Pastoureau has accomplished in his monumental work, Green. Designers of all ilks everywhere need to read this book, and the prior colors (Blue and Black) and future colors he comes out with as well. The thought process, planning and impeccable research that must have gone into this book is prodigious. We've always been fascinated with how color affects people and things - and this interest was tremendously accelerated when we did a science project on chicken contact lenses many years ago (they are red...and what happened to Randy Wise?)
What did we learn about Green? Green possesses strength. It has vigor. Roman glass vases were green. Norman pirates wore green tunics and we believe these were in the days before Ireland even existed as a nation- and they were called Vikings (we can't get enough of that show on The History Channel stay tuned for Season 3). Green was lucky for them.
In terms of color trend, did you know Green was promoted in the Middle Ages? It grew in images and symbols, and became more significant in daily life and material culture. Green became the color of the hunt, and hunters at this time "invented camouflage" we understand. Blending was discouraged at the time - no one was putting blue and yellow together - because of the conflict with the Creator's desired order and the blue and yellow vats were not in the same facility. Thursday was thought of as green in the Middle Ages-guess who was born on a Thursday and loves Green, the book included! Green is associated with the planet Venus as well, and Emeralds which is no surprise.
Green is the color of sport from the Roman Hippodrome to the turf on a soccer match and a golf course.
We're pleased to see that Babar Green
(the elephant!)
, which we'd say is Kelly Green, made this book and though Kermit said it's not easy being green, reading this book is an easy decision! Everything but the Green M&M made this book. We first loved Princeton for F. Scott Fitzgerald-we now love it for what they do today. PLUS, Jane Fonda is on the cover. We loved meeting her and we love that she put a link to our article for the event we met her at on her website.
Our esteemed panelists add:
Just open the book: Green. Feel the weight and read the words, even before you look at all the pretty pictures. This is a hefty tome that lends credence to the academic side of fashion theory. Much as in art, music, and dance, fashion and costume has their past and undeniable provenance, and Pastoureau has provided us with a tour de force erudite approach to color. Entitled: "Green: The History of a Color" and published by Princeton University Press, the English translation (by Jody Gladding) traces the historical aspect of how green went from demonic to heraldic, in the space of a few centuries. What are a few more centuries in adapting this color to fashion and beyond? Bring your best psychology theories to bear and trace the whys and howfors of a color through history, art, religion, into the present day. How you look at green beer will not remain the same after you've read this book. It's part of a series, so put it on your Christmas gift list for anyone in the fashion or art world. It's a must to own, and so much fun as a read. Academically speaking, it's popular culture at its best.
It’s easy to wonder what a book about a single color will be, exactly. How much can one say, after all, about the color green? But in “Green: The History of a Color” by Michel Pastoureau, the author argues that color is in fact “…defined first as a social phenomenon..." Pastoureau goes on to make his case, starting with the strange now-debunked theory that the ancient Greeks could not even see green to the present day, where of course “green” is a badge of honor for businesses, households, cleaning products, etc. I was most interested in his presentation of the “Arnolfini Wedding,” one of my (and many other people’s) favorite paintings. Through the history of green, which the bride wears in that painting, Pastoureau can confirm that she is, in fact, pregnant. Pastoureau calls out details from literature and recasts them through his particular lens. For example, the “unreasonable and extravagant” hero of Don Quixote wears armor with green ribbons, the result of a “code” of “social distinctions” that placed green somewhere towards the bottom. In this way, hues not only color our world literally, but figuratively as well.
Green is Highly Recommended by Whom You Know!
Noticeably absent in most of the prehistoric record yet nearly omnipresent today, green has represented jealousy, greed, disorder, and madness, but also youth, luck, purity, and fertility. GREEN: The History of a Color (Cloth $35.00, ISBN: 9780691159362, pub date: September 10, 2014) is the third book of five social and cultural studies on color from distinguished historian Michel Pastoureau—author of Blue (Princeton, 2001) and Black (Princeton, 2009). Pastoureau convincingly argues that we misread cultural, social, and art history when we assume that green always signified what it does today.
Full of informative anecdotes and luscious illustrations, GREEN reveals the interesting stories behind a rare and temperamental pigment that has had similarly changeable meanings across millennia of human history in clothing, art, science, religion, literature, and everyday life. Once associated with the unstable and megalomaniacal Roman emperor Nero, green was also abundant in the illuminated manuscripts of the early Middle Ages, became the fourth color of the Christian liturgical calendar, and obtained sacred and political meanings in the Islamic world. During the feudal period, it was the color of secular love and courtly life, but in later decades green came to be associated with the Devil, witches, and poison. Cervantes’s Don Quixote used green ribbons to hold on his armor, Goethe deemed it the color of the bourgeois and the merchant classes, and it was scorned by the De Stijl and Bauhaus schools.
Ultimately, GREEN shows that the history of color is one of tumultuous highs and lows: once often unused, neglected, or denigrated, green has experienced a recent revival as a hopeful symbol of environmental cause and progressive political movements. With its striking design and compelling text, GREEN will delight anyone who is interested in visual culture.
About the Author:
Michel Pastoureau is a historian and director of studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études de la Sorbonne in Paris. A specialist in the history of colors, symbols, and heraldry, he is the author of many books, including Blue and Black (both Princeton) and The Devil’s Cloth: A History of Stripes. His books have been translated into more than thirty languages.
GREEN
The History of a Color
Michel Pastoureau
Cloth | $35.00 / £24.95 | ISBN13: 9780691159362
240 pp. | 120 color illus. | 9 x 9
Publication Date: September 10, 2014
