27. Malevich, Essays on Art, 25.
28. Ad Reinhardt, Art as Art: The Selected Writings of Ad Reinhardt, ed. Barbara Rose (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 68, 75.
29. Gilles Néret, Malevich (Cologne: Taschen, 2003), 94.
30. Thomas Merton and Robert Lax, A Catch of Anti-Letters (Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield, 1994), 120.
31. André Maurois, Olympio; ou, La vie de Victor Hugo (Paris: Hachette, 1954), 564.
CHAPTER NINE
White Lies
1. Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, ed. Hershel Parker and Harrison Hayford, 2nd ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002), 165. All further quotations from the novel are from this edition and are cited parenthetically.
2. Ellsworth Kelly, “On Colour,” in Colour, ed. David Batchelor (London: Whitechapel, and Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), 223.
3. Henry James, The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Vol. 7: Tragic Muse, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1908), x.
4. D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, ed. Ezra Greenspan, Lindeth Vasey, and John Worthen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 146.
5. Herman Melville to Evert Duyckinck, March 3, 1849, in The Letters of Herman Melville, ed. Merrell R. Davis and William H. Gilman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960), 79.
6. Melville to Sophia Hawthorne, January 8, 1852, in Davis and Gilman, Letters of Melville, 146.
7. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, 133.
8. Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (New York: Random House, 1995), 217–18.
9. See David Batchelor, Chromophobia (London: Reaktion, 2000).
10. Johann Joachim Winckelmann, History of the Art of Antiquity, trans. H. F. Malgrave (Los Angeles: Getty, 2006) 194–95.
11. The phrase refers specifically to the Parthenon frieze by Phidias and appears in Walter Pater’s essay on Winckelmann, published in 1867 in the Westminster Review and then in his Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry [1873], ed. Donald J. Hill (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), 174.
12. Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Theory of Colours [1810], trans. Charles Lock Eastlake (1840; reprint, Mineola, NY: Dover, 2006), 199.
13. See Deborah Tarn Steiner, Images in Mind: Statues in Archaic and Classical Greek Literature and Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), esp. 55n155.
14. Roberta Smith, “In ‘Robert Ryman,’ One Color with the Power of Many,” New York Times, September 24, 1993.
15. Robert Ryman, “Robert Ryman in ‘Paradox,’” segment from PBS series art:21, Season 4, aired November 18, 2007.
16. The best account of Ryman’s paintings may well be Christopher Wood’s “Ryman’s Poetics,” Art in America 82 (January 1994): 62–70.
17. “Questions to Stella and Judd,” interview by Bruce Glaser, Art News 65, no. 5 (1966), as quoted in Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artist’s Writings, ed. Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 121.
18. See Robert K. Wallace, Frank Stella’s Moby-Dick: Words and Shapes (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000); and Elizabeth A. Schultz, Unpainted to the Last: Moby-Dick and Twentieth-Century American Art (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995).
19. Stella, “1989: Previews from 36 Creative Artists,” New York Times, January 1, 1989, compiled by Diane Solway, emphasis added.
CHAPTER TEN
Gray Areas
1. Susan Sontag, On Photography (1977; London: Penguin, 1979), 3.
2. John Berger, “Understanding a Photograph,” in Selected Essays, ed. Geoff Dyer (New York: Vintage, 2003), 216.
3. Augusten Burroughs, “William Eggleston, the Pioneer of Color Photography,” T Magazine, October 17, 2016.
4. Oliver Wendell Holmes, “The Stereoscope and the Stereograph,” Atlantic Monthly, June 1859, 739.
5. Louis Daguerre, “Daguerreotype,” in Classic Essays in Photography, ed. Alan Trachtenberg (New Haven: Leete’s Island Books, 1980), 12.
6. Paul Valéry, The Collected Works in English of Paul Valéry, Vol. 11: Occasions, trans. Roger Shattuck and Frederick Brown (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970), 164.
7. Samuel Morse, quoted in “Notes of the Month: Photogenic Drawing,” United States Democratic Review 5, no. 17 (1839): 518.
8. See Shawn Michelle Smith, The Edge of Sight: Photography and the Unseen (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013), 1–2.
9. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, quoted in Helmut and Allison Gernsheim, L. J. M. Daguerre: The History of the Diorama and the Daguerreotype (New York: Dutton, 1968), 67, emphasis added.
10. André Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image” [1945], in The Camera Viewed: Writings on Twentieth-Century Photography, ed. Peninah R. Petruck, vol. 2 (New York: E. Dutton, 1979), 142.
11. William Henry Fox Talbot, The Pencil of Nature, 6 vols. (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1844–46).
12. Pete Turner, pers. comm., April 23, 2010.
13. Robert Frank, quoted in Nathan Lyons, ed., Photographers on Photography: A Critical Anthology (New York: Prentice Hall, 1966), 66.
14. Stephanie Brown, “Black and White,” American Poetry Review 34, no. 2 (2005): 2.
15. Five of the photos are now in the Farm Security Administration collection at the Library of Congress. The sixth, a long shot, she seems to have kept, and it is now in the Oakland Museum of California. The sixth picture appears without comment, along with the other five from the series, in an article by Lange’s second husband, Paul Taylor, “Migrant Mother: 1936,” American West 7, no. 3 (1970): 41–47.
16. Her name was not known until October 1978, when, after having been contacted by a local reporter, she wrote a letter to the Modesto Bee identifying herself as Florence Owens Thompson.
17. Roy Stryker, In This Proud Land: America, 1935–1943, as Seen in the FSA Photographs (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1973), 19.
18. “‘Can’t Get a Penny’: Famed Photo’s Subject Feels She’s Exploited,” Los Angeles Times, November 18, 1978.
19. Dorothea Lange, “The Assignment I’ll Never Forget: Migrant Mother,” Popular Photography 46, no. 2 (1960): 42–43, 81.
20. James Agee, quoted in William Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 264.
21. See David Batchelor’s The Luminous and the Grey (London: Reaktion, 2014), 63–96.
22. Gary Ross, dir., Pleasantville (Larger Than Life Productions / New Line Cinema, 1998); Pleasantville: A Fairy Tale by Gary Ross (1996), http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/Pleasantville.htm.
23. On cinematic “falls into color” and so much more, see David Batchelor’s splendid Chromophobia (London: Reaktion, 2000), esp. 36–41.
24. L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Chicago: George M. Hill, 1900), 12–13.
25. Salman Rushdie, The Wizard of Oz (London: British Film Institute, 1992), 17.
26. Baum, Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 44–45.
27. See Ranjit S. Dighe, ed., The Historian’s “Wizard of Oz”: Reading L. Frank Baum’s Classic as a Political and Monetary Allegory (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002).
28. Rushdie, Wizard of Oz, 24.
Illustration Credits
The photographers and the sources of visual material other than the owners indicated in the captions are as follows. Every effort has been made to supply complete and correct credits; if there are errors or omissions, please contact Yale University Press so that corrections can be made in any subsequent edition.
Fig. 2: Flickr/Roberto Faccenda
Fig. 3: From Newsday, September 5, 2016 © 2016 Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited. www.newsday.com.
Fig. 4: Courtesy of R. B. Lotto and D. Purves; image courtesy of BrainDe
n.com
Fig. 5: Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library, MS-ADD-03975-000-00021.jpg (MS Add. 3975, p. 15)
Fig. 7: Galen Rowell, Mountain Light/Alamy Stock Photo
Fig. 8: Cecilia Bleasdale
Fig. 9: Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 11: Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 12: Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 13: © 2017 The Barnett Newman Foundation, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Fig. 14: © Byron Kim, Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington
Fig. 15: Courtesy of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York
Fig. 16: Courtesy of Ed Welter
Fig. 17: Private Collection, © Glenn Ligon, Image courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and Thomas Dane Gallery, London
Fig. 18: Matt Mills, Austin, TX, http://stockandrender.com
Fig. 20: Reuters/Amit Dave
Fig. 21: Flickr/Anna & Michal
Fig. 22: Liam Daniel
Fig. 23: © 2017 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Fig. 24: Scala/Art Resource, NY
Fig. 25: bpk Bildagentur/Charles Wilp/Art Resource, NY
Fig. 27: David Stroe/Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 28: Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 29: © National Portrait Gallery, London
Fig. 30: Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 31: The Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri, Gift of the Laura Nelson Kirkwood Residuary Trust, 44-41/2, Photo: Chris Bjuland and Joshua Ferdinand
Fig. 32: Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 33: © James Turrell, Photo: © Florian Holzherr
Fig. 34: Paramount Pictures/Photofest © Paramount Pictures
Fig. 35: Condé Nast/GettyImages
Fig. 37: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
Fig. 38: © 2017 Frank Stella/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Fig. 39: Collection Musée de la Carte Postale, Baud, France
Fig. 40: Wikimedia Commons
Fig. 41: Photo: Bill Jacobson, courtesy The Greenwich Collection Ltd. and Dia Art Foundation, New York. All art by Robert Ryman © 2017 Robert Ryman/Artist Rights Socierty (ARS), New York
Fig. 43: Library of Congress, cph.3b41800
Fig. 46: New Line Cinema/Photofest © New Line Cinema
Index
Note: Page numbers in italic type indicate illustrations.
Abbott, Berenice, 197
abstract art: black and, 169–75
impressionism as precursor to, 148–49, 152–53
Malevich and, 169–72, 174–75
Reinhardt and, 174–75
Rodchenko and, 112–13
role of color in, 52–57, 72–73, 77, 112–13. See also modernism and modern art
achromatic colors, 17, 167, 179
achromatopsia, 34
Adams, Ansel, 197
Adams, Robert, 197
The Addams Family (television show), 164
African National Congress, 89
African slaves, 127–32
after-images, 15
Agee, James, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, 205
Ahmadinejad, Mahmoud, 86–87
Albers, Josef, 14, 73, 97
Alexander the Great, 45
Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, etc., 140
Arbus, Diane, 197
Aristotle, 12, 172
art. See abstract art; modernism and modern art; painting
art deco, 68
art nouveau, 68
Arts and Crafts Movement, 68
Asians: demonization of, 65–66, 71
idealization of, 68
yellow associated with, 63–69, 71
Astaire, Fred, 164, 211
atmosphere, impressionists’ rendering of, 145–47, 152
atoms, 26
Audubon, John James, 103
Avedon, Richard, 197
Baeyer, Adolf von, 134
Baldessari, John, Millennium Piece (with Orange), 42, 58–59
Balfour-Paul, Jenny, 123, 227n5, 227n8, 227n14, 228n27, 229n33
Indigo Dyer in San, Mali, 120
Barr, Alfred H., Jr., 171
basic color terms, 43–44
Batchelor, David, 188, 216n16, 222n18, 234n2, 235n9, 237n21, 237n23
Baudelaire, Charles, 164
Baum, L. Frank, The Wizard of Oz, 211–13
Bazin, André, 199
Belgium, 94
Bellona, 7, 19
Benjamin, Susannah, Roses Are Red, 22
Benjamin, Walter, 30
Berger, John, 197
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 95
black, 159–75
ambivalence of, 164–66
class signaled by, 163
as a color, 166–68
connotations of, 164, 187
death and, 175
dull vs. shiny, 165, 175
emotions associated with, 101–2
fashionableness of, 162–64
as ground of creation, 168–69, 172, 174–75
Little Black Dress, 158, 159–60, 161, 162
monochrome paintings of, 169–75
names for, 165
painters’ use of, 169–75
political connotations of, 94
religious associations of, 174–75
sky as, 167–68
super-, 164–65
versatility of, 164
white in relation to, 165–66, 187–88
blank, as a color, 187
blue, 101–17
British navy uniforms in, 134
connotations of, 58, 108, 114, 116
emotions associated with, 101–7
environmental connotations of, 85
Greeks’ perception of the ocean, 4–8
Klein and, 54, 111–14, 113, 116–17
monochrome paintings of, 54–55, 111–12
Picasso and, 104–7, 114, 116–17
pigment used for, 109, 111
political connotations of, 89–94
blues, 103–4
blue states (United States), 1–2, 89–90
Blundeville, Thomas, 46
Boehner, John, 33
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 18, 134
Bonnard, Pierre, 155
Borges, Jorge Luis, 165
Boudin, Eugène, 140
Bracquemond, Félix, 44
brain, 2, 9, 14, 28–29, 33, 217n8
Brando, Marlon, 164
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (film), 158, 159–60
Brewster, David, 153
Bronzino, 163
brown: emotions associated with, 101
political connotations of, 94
Brown, Stephanie, 201
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 14
Browning, Robert, 12
Buren, Daniel, 72
Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 84
Burty, Philippe, 145
Bush, George W., 89, 90
Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 88
Cambridge University, 172
Campbell, Thomas, 10
Canova, Antonio, 189
Capote, Truman, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 160
Caravaggio, 169
Cardon, Émile, 140, 142
Carefree (film), 211
carrots, 46–47
Carter, Jimmy, 90
Cartier-Bresson, Henri, 197
Casagemas, Carlos, 106
Castagnary, Jules-Antoine, 144
Catholicism, green associated with, 96
Cennini, Cennino, 109
Cézanne, Paul, 107, 140, 146, 152, 153, 155
Chanel, Coco, and the “Ford” dress, 160, 161, 162, 164
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 44–45, 47, 102
Chechen Republic, 89
Chestnut crayon, 79
China, 91, 92–93, 182
chromophobia, 188
&
nbsp; Claretie, Jules, 141
Clarke, Arthur C., 85
classicism, 188–90
Cleopatra, 140
cochineal, 122
Cohen, Jonathan, 38
Colgate, 188
color: conceptualization of, 38–39
disciplinary perspectives on, 2–3
experiential nature of, 31–33, 217n12
mind-dependent character of, 28–30
mystery of, 2–4, 24
normal, 35–37
numbers of, 19
as physical property, 23–26, 30, 166, 179
relational quality of, 13–15, 29, 32, 73, 97
thought as influence on, 38–39
ubiquity of, 1–2
color constancy, 148
color discrimination deficiency (color-blindness), 34–37
color names. See color words/names
Color Revolutions, 94
color theory, 51, 223n15
color words/names: black, 165, 168
cultural variability of, 5–9
indigo, 122–23
linguistic function of, 43
norms underlying, 35
orange, 44–48
paintings based on, 77–78
perception influenced by, 8–9
rose, 23
scope and variety of, 43–44
sources of, 43–44
violet/purple, 139
white, 186–87
communism, 90–91
complementary colors, 51
cones (vision), 28, 34–37, 224n15
Connolly, James, 91–92, 96
Conservative Party (United Kingdom), 90
Cooper, James Fenimore, Deerslayer, 101
Cooper, Thomas, 46
Copernicus, 30
Copley, Anthony, 46
Cornsweet illusion, 13–14, 13
Courbet, Gustave, 145
Crayola, 69–70, 79
creation of the world, 168–69, 172, 174–75
crimson, 43
crow’s wing blue, 122
cyanosis, 102
Daguerre, Louis, 198
Dangerfield, Rodney, 15
Dante Alighieri, 11
Darwin, Charles, 5
Davis, Miles, Kind of Blue, 107
death, 175
Degas, Edgar, 106, 140
DeGeneres, Ellen, 33
Delaunay, Sonia, 53
Delingpole, James, 84
Demel, Walter, 64
Democratic Alliance (South Africa), 94
Democratic Party, 89–90