Blue: The History of a Color

Description

A beautifully illustrated visual and cultural history of the color blue throughout the ages Blue has had a long and topsy-turvy history in the Western world. The ancient Greeks scorned it as ugly and barbaric, but most Americans and Europeans now cite it as their favorite color. In this fascinating history, the renowned medievalist Michel Pastou

Michel Pastoureau is a historian and emeritus director of studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes de la Sorbonne in Paris. A specialist in the history of colors, symbols, and heraldry, he is the author of many books, including Red, Green, and Black (all Princeton) and The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes. His books have been translated into more than thirty languages.

"A miracle of poetry in the midst of academic rigidity." * Telerama * ". . . a rich volume, intelligently illustrated. . . . With sure-footed scholarship, trenchant opinions, Michel Pastoureau goes beyond a perfunctory visit: he makes us realize the importance of this material and avoids the errors of a number of other historians." * Le Monde * ". . . a delicious mix of erudition and lighthearted fun." * Livres * "Pastoureau's text moves us through one fascinating area of activity after another. . . . The jacket, cover and end-papers of this luscious book are appropriately blue; its double-columned text breathes easily in the space of its pages; it is so well sewn it opens flat at any place; and fascinating, aptly chosen color plates, not confined to the title color, will please even those eyes denied the good luck of being blue."---William Gass, Los Angeles Times Book Review "Blue is both prettily produced and whimsically enjoyable."---Julian Bell, Times Literary Supplement "Michel Pastoureau takes us into territory that could be made to feel impossibly dense and absurdly specialized. To his credit, the tour is brisk and challenging."---John Loughery, Washington Post Book World "A generous, gorgeous book full of nearly 100 historical and artistic plates, all illustrating the meaning and role of the color blue in Western history. . . . Pastoureau has created something rare: a coffee table book that is also a good read. And not just a good read, but a compelling read."---Brian Bouldrey, Chicago Tribune "Blue . . . is confident, stylish, well-turned out. . . . The book's sapphire glow will grace the most discriminating coffee tables."---Jane Gardam, Spectator "This beautifully illustrated book is well written and informative, and makes an important contribution to the social history of art." * Choice * "In this beguiling and beautiful mixture of art book and social history, the distinguished French scholar shows how the rarest of all colors became the commonest."---Emma Hagestadt and Boyd Tonkin, The Independent Magazine "The material history of a certain section of the spectrum, from the costly tones of the Virgin's cloak to uniforms, Picasso and jeans. History can make you blind, but some historians can make you see again."---James Davidson, Daily Telegraph "Taken together, the earlier volumes on blue (2001), black (2009), green (2013) and red (2017), plus the new book, [Yellow,] represent 'an edifice' that [Michel Pastoureau] has been working to build for half a century: a history of colours in (for the most part) Europe from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the 18th century and beyond. . . . [The books] amount to an ambitious project deserving not merely respect but even a touch of awe. There are very few comparable enterprises."---Kevin Jackson, Literary Review