Color in Art

Art historian Zuffi's introductory survey of color throughout (mostly Western) art history spans millennia while sharing entertaining stories about the range of moods and meanings that color can convey in art. Organized, of course, by color, Zuffi's book wanders through the primaries, considers the many greens of nature, charts the divinity of gold, and compares the oppositional natures of white and black. Symbolism, as Zuffi (The Cat in Art) tells readers, is subjective and highly dependent upon time and place. Red, that sculptor of depth for cave painters and thus humanity's oldest hue, can indicate elegance, as it does in Jan van Eyck's famous red turban, or lust, as seen in Bosch's lurid and twisted The Garden of Earthly Delights. Yellow is a showy focal point in Vermeer's Delft landscapes, yet it's also therapeutic for a depression-prone van Gogh. Blues indicate sadness, but they're also elusive: Yves Klein had to create his own. Both pharaohs and saints bathe in gold, while Klimt repurposes it for love. White is innocence and death, while Black plays the field. While at times they seem to have been selected at random, the high-quality reproductions that Zuffi uses to illustrate his arguments repay hours of study. 200 color illus. (Sept.)