Once you begin painting, you no longer see Fall leaves simply as beautiful colors, instead they transform into shades of Venetian red, golden ochre, vermillion and morellone, because now you’ve entered the vivid world of color.
Color attracts us to apprehend beauty, then speaks to us in a visual language of symbolism that conveys the meaning of the subject. For example, in iconography, when we see a vibrant cobalt blue garment painted from ground Lapis Lazuli, we know we are encountering the Virgin Mary, or Theotokos; when Christ is portrayed in a radiant white robe, we know He has risen.
This post will tell you about the discovery of a 17th century 900 page anthology of hand painted color studies and three really informative books on color.
Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau
This first, Traite des couleurs servant a la peinture a l’eau, is the most amazing story. This manuscript is a color study of over 900 pages of hand mixed and painted water color swatches created specifically for artists by Dutch artist A. Boogert in 1692. It includes instructions on how to mix watercolors in every color of the spectrum. The fact that it is the ONLY copy, limited the number of people who had the opportunity to study it, although it is believed to what influenced Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s art history making studies and possibly even Syme’s book of Werner’s Nomenclature (see below).
“The obscure book disappeared in the archives of the Bibliothèque Méjanes in Aix-en-Provence, France. That is, until its discovery recently by Medieval book historian Erik Kwakkel, who posted scans on his Tumblr and translated some of the introduction from the original Dutch.
The original still resides in a Library in France at Aix-en-Provence, as does the digitization, but when I tried to access it through the archives, I found that the library’s site had crashed years ago after Professor Erik Kwakkel posted information about this fabulous book to his Tumblr site. It was tremendously popular.
I wrote to Professor Kwakkel to ask if he knew of another avenue for me to pursue, because I really wanted to look at this book. Alas, the answer was negative, as his experience was the same as mine, the site had crashed.
Professor Kwakkel replied with the following link to view the book in its digitized entirety!
Click to view: 898 pages of high-resolution digital scans at the Bibliothèque Méjanes site.
Go to this page, click on the picture, then click on the arrows in the lower right side of the page to move through the book.
Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours
Edited by P. Syme
First published in 1814, was the result of the work of eminent Geologist/Mineralogist Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817). In his first textbook, On the External Characteristics of Fossils (minerals were also considered fossils), he developed a guide for identifying minerals, addressing key characteristics of color and luster.
Patrick Syme (1774 – 1845) studied natural history under Robert Jameson at Edinburgh University where he saw Werner’s work and matched Werner’s descriptions of the actual minerals to color names, descriptions and color charts. For example, Prussian Blue is matched the “Beauty Spot on the Wing of Mallard Drake” the “Stamina of Bluish Purple Anemone” and “Blue Copper Ore.”
Werner’s Nomenclature of Color was used widely by artists and naturalists, most notably Charles Darwin used it on his expedition on the HMS Beagle during 1831-36. He used Werner’s terminology for the descriptions in zoological notes, natural scenes and to species both new and known, knowing that specimens would deteriorate during the voyage.
Kassia St. Clair
This is a fun compilation of short vignettes addressing under 100 colors and ranges from some information on chemistry/mineral composition to the significance of the color throughout history. It is interspersed with random fun facts (cochineal required 70,000 dried beetles for a pound of carmine red pigment). The edges of the book match the color sections roughly. It doesn’t address color theory or composition, but I thought it was fun and filled with interesting trivia.
Color – The Natural History of the Palette
Victoria Finlay
“Color” combines color history, with the author’s travel to conduct firsthand research, organized by color. I enjoyed the historical information about dyes and interesting facts like Green Celadon was a seaweed green porcelain that only the Chinese emperor could own, or that the most vibrant purple comes from Tyrean mollusks. The stories are written travel-log style, which makes it both entertaining and informative.
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