Color Science And The Visual Arts

“A curator, a paintings conservator, a photographer, and a conservation scientist walk into a bar.” What happens next? In lively and accessible prose, color science expert Roy S. Berns helps the reader understand complex color-technology concepts and offers solutions to problems that occur when art is displayed, conserved, imaged, or reproduced. Berns writes for two types of audiences: museum professionals seeking explanations for common color-related issues and students in conservation, museum studies, and art history programs. The seven chapters in the book fall naturally into two sections: fundamentals, covering topics such as spectral measurements, metamerism, and color inconstancy; and applications, where artwork display, painting materials, and color reproduction are discussed. A unique feature of this book is the use of more than 200 images as its main medium of communication, employing color physics, color vision, and imaging science to produce visualizations throughout the pages. An annotated bibliography complements the main text with suggestions for further reading and more in-depth study of particular topics. Engaging, incisive, and absolutely critical for any scholar or student interested in color science, Color Science and the Visual Arts is sure to become a key reference for the entire field.

A fully illustrated collection of eight essays on colour for the non-specialist reader.

This volume presents the life work of the late Ruth Johnston-Feller, one of the nation's leading color scientists. It combines an overview of basic theoretical concepts with detailed, hands-on guidance for the professional conservator and conservation scientist. The author focuses on the application of color science to the solution of practical problems, providing a comprehensive discussion of the nondestructive spectrophotometric tools and techniques used to understand the color and appearance of materials during the technical examination of works of art. The book, which features numerous examples of reference reflectance spectra, can help prevent misinterpretation of color measurements and the erroneous conclusions that might result. Topics include spectrophotometry, colorimetry, colorant mixtures, analytical techniques, reflection, fluorescence, and the effects of extenders, fillers, and inerts.

Intended for students in the visual arts and for others with an interest in art, but with no prior knowledge of physics, this book presents the science behind what and how we see. The approach emphasises phenomena rather than mathematical theories and the joy of discovery rather than the drudgery of derivations. The text includes numerous problems, and suggestions for simple experiments, and also considers such questions as why the sky is blue, how mirrors and prisms affect the colour of light, how compact disks work, and what visual illusions can tell us about the nature of perception. It goes on to discuss such topics as the optics of the eye and camera, the different sources of light, photography and holography, colour in printing and painting, as well as computer imaging and processing.

Why is the sky blue? Why do mountains appear purple from far away? Why are sunsets so brilliant in color? What is color anyway? If you have ever pondered these questions, you are not alone. Color is an intriguing phenomenon, easily explained by science. As a professional artist and art instructor, Debi connects the dots between science and art by using light science as a teaching tool to answer all these questions and more in Color with a Twist: Understanding the Science of Color for Artists.

The aim of this book is to assemble a series of chapters, written by experts in their fields, covering the basics of color - and then some more. In this way, readers are supplied with almost anything they want to know about color outside their own area of expertise. Thus, the color measurement expert, as well as the general reader, can find here information on the perception, causes, and uses of color. For the artist there are details on the causes, measurement, perception, and reproduction of color. Within each chapter, authors were requested to indicate directions of future efforts, where applicable. One might reasonably expect that all would have been learned about color in the more than three hundred years since Newton established the fundamentals of color science. This is not true because: • the measurement of color still has unresolved complexities (Chapter 2) • many of the fine details of color vision remain unknown (Chapter 3) • every few decades a new movement in art discovers original ways to use new pigments, and dyes continue to be discovered (Chapter 5) • the philosophical approach to color has not yet crystallized (Chapter 7) • new pigments and dyes continue to be discovered (Chapters 10 and 11) • the study of the biological and therapeutic effects of color is still in its infancy (Chapter 2). Color continues to develop towards maturity and the editor believes that there is much common ground between the sciences and the arts and that color is a major connecting bridge.

Written collectively by a group of four expert researchers, focuses on a most intriguing subject: the function of color metaphors in the arts. This book includes conclusive discussions with regards to color metaphors in three domains: poetry, visual art and music. Conclusions are based on theoretical and empirical inquiry in the respective disciplines. Innovative areas of research are included in the book, such as the function of color in children's poetry and color-hearing metaphors (chromaesthesia) among listeners who encounter classical music. This book consists of a prologue, seven chapters, and an epilogue. The prologue explains color metaphor as a cross-disciplinary phenomenon. The chapters are divided into two broad sections: Section A (Chapters One through Four) contains four theoretical studies; Section B (Chapters Five through Seven) presents three empirical studies. The epilogue offers a novel viewpoint of counter-color metaphors (abbreviated CoCoM). Color metaphors are laden with symbolism, signs and cultural connotations that artists use in imaginative ways. In this book, the authors explore color metaphors as they contribute to our understanding of the arts. This book includes a comprehensive, updated literature review, which provides background information and new insights into the meaning of color metaphors in the arts. Academic readers and researchers may find valuable information in this book through the study of color metaphors, bridging the arts.

The uncommon sensory perceptions of synesthesia explored through accounts of synesthetes' experiences, the latest scientific research, and suggestions of synesthesia in visual art, music, and literature. What is does it mean to hear music in colors, to taste voices, to see each letter of the alphabet as a different color? These uncommon sensory experiences are examples of synesthesia, when two or more senses cooperate in perception. Once dismissed as imagination or delusion, metaphor or drug-induced hallucination, the experience of synesthesia has now been documented by scans of synesthetes' brains that show "crosstalk" between areas of the brain that do not normally communicate. In The Hidden Sense, Cretien van Campen explores synesthesia from both artistic and scientific perspectives, looking at accounts of individual experiences, examples of synesthesia in visual art, music, and literature, and recent neurological research. Van Campen reports that some studies define synesthesia as a brain impairment, a short circuit between two different areas. But synesthetes cannot imagine perceiving in any other way; many claim that synesthesia helps them in daily life. Van Campen investigates just what the function of synesthesia might be and what it might tell us about our own sensory perceptions. He examines the experiences of individual synesthetes—from Patrick, who sees music as images and finds the most beautiful ones spring from the music of Prince, to the schoolgirl Sylvia, who is surprised to learn that not everyone sees the alphabet in colors as she does. And he finds suggestions of synesthesia in the work of Scriabin, Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Nabokov, Poe, and Baudelaire. What is synesthesia? It is not, van Campen concludes, an audiovisual performance, a literary technique, an artistic trend, or a metaphor. It is, perhaps, our hidden sense—a way to think visually; a key to our own sensitivity.