Summary of Kassia St. Clair's The Secret Lives of Color

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 White is a difficult color to make. It can’t be mixed together with other colors, and anything you add to it will only take it in one direction: toward black. It is also toxic.
#2 White has long been connected with money and power. Only the wealthy could afford to keep their fresh lace and linen cuffs, ruffs, and cravats pristine. This still holds true today.
#3 White has many meanings, but for many, it is positive and has a transcendent, religious quality. It is the Chinese color of death and mourning. In the West and Japan, brides wear it because it is a color symbolic of sexual purity.
#4 The architectural idolization of white is based on a mistake. For centuries, the bleached-bone color of classical Greek and Roman ruins was the keystone of Western aesthetics. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that researchers discovered that classical statuary and buildings were usually brightly painted.

Sujets

• Religion
• Color Theory
• Art
• Sexualité
• sexualité
• Sexualité

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 14 juin 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822531314
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Kassia St. Clair's The Secret Lives of Color
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

White is a difficult color to make. It can’t be mixed together with other colors, and anything you add to it will only take it in one direction: toward black. It is also toxic.

#2

White has long been connected with money and power. Only the wealthy could afford to keep their fresh lace and linen cuffs, ruffs, and cravats pristine. This still holds true today.

#3

White has many meanings, but for many, it is positive and has a transcendent, religious quality. It is the Chinese color of death and mourning. In the West and Japan, brides wear it because it is a color symbolic of sexual purity.

#4

The architectural idolization of white is based on a mistake. For centuries, the bleached-bone color of classical Greek and Roman ruins was the keystone of Western aesthetics. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that researchers discovered that classical statuary and buildings were usually brightly painted.

#5

The secret to the longevity of the lead white paint used in the tombs of the rulers of the Goguryeo region lies in the fact that it was made with a base layer of lead carbonate, which was then covered in paint.

#6

The use of white lead as a cosmetic was not new, and was even popular in the Victorian era. While some argued that breast-feeding infants were ingesting lead worn by their mothers, cosmetic ceruse remained alarmingly popular for centuries.

#7

The Lewis Chessmen, a collection of 78 chess pieces that were found in a small stone chamber in a sandbank on the Isle of Lewis in 1831, are mysterious. They were probably carved from walrus ivory in Trondheim in Norway between 1150 and 1200.

#8

The trade in ivory dates back to the days of the Lewis Chessmen. It has been estimated that over half of China’s current supply of ivory may have come from woolly mammoth tusks.

#9

Silver has been used as a currency, a reflective metal, and a poison detector. It has symbolic associations with old-fashioned superstitions as well as an imagined future.

#10

The Spanish Empire was fueled by the silver mined in South and Central America. The conquistadors exported around 150,000 tons of the metal between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, which accounted for around 80 percent of the world’s supply.

#11

In 1894, fear swept through the narrow streets of Hong Kong when plague struck. The disease had been spreading sporadically through mainland China for forty years before materializing on the island.

#12

The use of whitewash as a form of punishment dates back to the English Reformation, when churches and parishioners used it to obscure colorful murals and altarpieces that depicted saints in ways they now deemed impious.

#13

The color Isabelline is the namesake of Isabella Clara Eugenia, the queen of Spain. It is a dingy yellow-white, and it was used to describe the queen’s linens after she vowed she would not change or wash her underwear until her husband, Archduke Albert VII of Austria, won.

#14

Chalk is a white rock that is formed from marine ooze. It is used as a pigment in paintings, and is also used to make glazing layers more transparent.

#15

The word beige is French, and was originally used to describe a kind of cloth made from undyed sheep’s wool. It has been loaned in the mid-nineteenth century from French, and has rarely inspired strong passions. It has mostly been used as a foil for colors with more character.