A Perfect Red

Author: Amy Butler Greenfield
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061980897
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
“You’ll finish [Greenfield’s] book with new respect for color, especially for red. With A Perfect Red, she does for it what Mark Kurlansky in Salt did for that common commodity.”—Houston Chronicle Interweaving mystery, empire, and adventure, Amy Butler Greenfield’s masterful popular history offers a window onto a world far different from our own: a world in which the color red was rare and precious—a source of wealth and power for those who could unlock its secrets. And in this world nothing was more prized than cochineal, a red dye that produced the brightest, strongest red the Old World had ever seen. A Perfect Red recounts the story of this legendary red dye, from its cultivation by the ancient Mexicans and discovery by 16th-century Spanish conquistadors to the European pirates, explorers, alchemists, scientists, and spies who joined in the chase to unlock its secrets, a chase that lasted more than three centuries. It evokes with style and verve this history of a grand obsession, of intrigue, empire, and adventure in pursuit of the most desirable color on earth.

Red

Author: Spike Bucklow
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780236247
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
Blood, rust, lava, wine—the flush of passion and the glow of approaching night—no color arrests our attention more than the color red. Today it is the flag of danger and seduction, of spirit and revolution, but throughout nearly all of human history it has held a special place in our aesthetics. In this book, Spike Bucklow brings us into the heart of this fiery hue to better understand the unique powers it has had over us. Bucklow takes us from a thirty-four-thousand-year-old shaman burial dress to the iPhone screen, exploring the myriad of purposes we have put red to as well as the materials from which we have looked to harvest it. And we have looked for it everywhere, from insects to tree resin to tar to excitable gasses. Bucklow also details how our pursuit of the color drove medieval alchemy and modern chemistry alike, and he shows us red’s many symbolic uses, its association with earth, blood, and fire, its coloring of caves and the throne rooms of goddesses, as well as national flags, fire trucks, power grids, and stoplights. The result is a material and cultural history that makes one see this color afresh, beating with vibrancy, a crucial part of the human visual world.

Cochineal Red

Author: Elena Phipps
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 1588393615
Category : Cochineal
Languages : en
Pages : 50

Book Description
From antiquity to the present day, color has been embedded with cultural meaning. Associated with blood, fire, fertility, and life force, the color red has always been extremely difficult to achieve and thus highly prized." "This book discusses the origin of the red colorant derived from the insect cochineal, its early use in Precolumbian ritual textiles from Mexico and Peru, and the spread of the American dyestuff through cultural interchange following the Spanish discovery and conquest of the New World in the 16th century. Drawing on examples from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, it documents the use of this red-colored treasure in several media and throughout the world.

The Red Dyes

Author: Gösta Sandberg
Publisher: Sterling
ISBN:
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
This book reveals the fascinating history of how the natural red dyes came to various people and cultures centuries ago. Gosta Sandberg's narratives are filled with tension and drama. Historical events, tragic experiments, and amusing anecdotes are interspersed with well-informed descriptions of how the red dyes were developed and used on textile products of various kinds. Turkey red dyeing - the most complicated dyeing process ever invented by humans - is covered in depth. Gosta explores the fascinating history of Indian, Persian, and Turkey red calico prints, explaining how it is possible to find Javanese patterns on the red shawls of Dalecarleian women. The text is complemented with unique photographic material of pattern sketches, recipes, and test sample excerpts and original prints from manufacturers' archival treasures. Contemporary recipes for dyeing with madder and cochineal are also included.

The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing

Author: J. N. Liles
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 9780870496707
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
"For several thousand years, all dyes were of animal, vegetable, or mineral origin, and many ancient civilizations possessed excellent dye technologies. The first synthetic dye was produced in 1856, and the use of traditional dyes declined rapidly thereafter. By 1915 few non-synthetics were used by industry or craftspeople. The craft revivals of the 1920s explored traditional methods of natural dyeing to some extent, particularly with wool, although the great eighteenth- and nineteenth-century dye manuals, which recorded the older processes, remained largely forgotten. In The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing, J.N. Liles consolidates the lore of the older dyers with his own first-hand experience to produce both a history of natural dyes and a practical manual for using pre-synthetic era processes on all the natural fibers--cotton, linen, silk, and wool. A general section on dyeing and mordanting and a glossary introduce the beginner to dye technology. In subsequent chapters, Liles summarizes the traditional dye methods available for each major color group. Scores of recipes provide detailed instructions on how to collect ingredients--flowers, weeds, insects, wood, minerals--prepare the dyevat, troubleshoot, and achieve specific shades"--Publisher's description.

The Secret Lives of Colour

Author: Kassia St Clair
Publisher: John Murray
ISBN: 1473630827
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

Book Description
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'A mind-expanding tour of the world without leaving your paintbox. Every colour has a story, and here are some of the most alluring, alarming, and thought-provoking. Very hard painting the hallway magnolia after this inspiring primer.' Simon Garfield The Secret Lives of Colour tells the unusual stories of the 75 most fascinating shades, dyes and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history. In this book Kassia St Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colours and where they come from (whether Van Gogh's chrome yellow sunflowers or punk's fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilisation. Across fashion and politics, art and war, The Secret Lives of Colour tell the vivid story of our culture.

Global History and New Polycentric Approaches

Author: Manuel Perez Garcia
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811040532
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

Book Description
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. Rethinking the ways global history is envisioned and conceptualized in diverse countries such as China, Japan, Mexico or Spain, this collections considers how global issues are connected with our local and national communities. It examines how the discipline had evolved in various historiographies, from Anglo Saxon to southern European, and its emergence in Asia with the rapid development of the Chinese economy motivation to legitimate the current uniqueness of the history and economy of the nation. It contributes to the revitalization of the field of global history in Chinese historiography, which have been dominated by national narratives and promotes a debate to open new venues in which important features such as scholarly mobility, diversity and internationalization are firmly rooted, putting aside national specificities. Dealing with new approaches on the use of empirical data by framing the proper questions and hypotheses and connecting western and eastern sources, this text opens a new forum of discussion on how global history has penetrated in western and eastern historiographies, moving the pivotal axis of analysis from national perspectives to open new venues of global history.

The Butterfly Effect

Author: Edward D. Melillo
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 1524733229
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Book Description
A fascinating, entertaining dive into the long-standing relationship between humans and insects, revealing the surprising ways we depend on these tiny, six-legged creatures. Insects might make us shudder in disgust, but they are also responsible for many of the things we take for granted in our daily lives. When we bite into a shiny apple, listen to the resonant notes of a violin, get dressed, receive a dental implant, or get a manicure, we are the beneficiaries of a vast army of insects. Try as we might to replicate their raw material (silk, shellac, and cochineal, for instance), our artificial substitutes have proven subpar at best, and at worst toxic, ensuring our interdependence with the insect world for the foreseeable future. Drawing on research in laboratory science, agriculture, fashion, and international cuisine, Edward D. Melillo weaves a vibrant world history that illustrates the inextricable and fascinating bonds between humans and insects. Across time, we have not only coexisted with these creatures but have relied on them for, among other things, the key discoveries of modern medical science and the future of the world's food supply. Without insects, entire sectors of global industry would grind to a halt and essential features of modern life would disappear. Here is a beguiling appreciation of the ways in which these creatures have altered--and continue to shape--the very framework of our existence.

The World According to Colour

Author: James Fox
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141976667
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Book Description
'Extraordinary. An intellectual feast as well as a visual one' Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes The world comes to us in colour. But colour lives as much in our imaginations as it does in our surroundings, as this scintillating book reveals. Each chapter immerses the reader in a single colour, drawing together stories from the histories of art and humanity to illuminate the meanings it has been given over the eras and around the globe. Showing how artists, scientists, writers, philosophers, explorers and inventors have both shaped and been shaped by these wonderfully myriad meanings, James Fox reveals how, through colour, we can better understand their cultures, as well as our own. Each colour offers a fresh perspective on a different epoch, and together they form a vivid, exhilarating history of the world. 'We have projected our hopes, anxieties and obsessions onto colour for thousands of years,' Fox writes. 'The history of colour, therefore, is also a history of humanity.'

Heritage of Colour

Author: Jenny Dean
Publisher: Search Press Limited
ISBN: 1781267839
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 83

Book Description
A Heritage of Colour explores the techniques that can be used to create a wealth of colours from 50 plants, including many that have been in constant use as dyes for over 2000 years. Inspired by the colours on textile fragments from the Iron Age and by the achievements of early dyers, the author describes some of the dyes and methods of the past and considers how they can be adapted for use by today's dyers. The book covers all the basics of natural dyeing and explains in detail how to experiment with local plants, wherever you may live, to produce a wide range of beautiful, rich colours on textile fibres. A Heritage of Colour also includes sections on dyeing with fungi, contact printing on cloth and dyeing multi-coloured fibres and fabrics. The emphasis throughout is on environmentally-friendly methods and on the thrill of personal discovery through practical experience. Follow Jenny's blog on http://www.jennydean.co.uk/