Green: The History of a Color

by Michel Pastoureau

Overview

In this beautiful and richly illustrated book, the acclaimed author of Blue and Black presents a fascinating and revealing history of the color green in European societies from prehistoric times to today. Examining the evolving place of green in art, clothes, literature, religion, science, and everyday life, Michel Pastoureau traces how culture has profoundly changed the perception and meaning of the color over millennia—and how we misread cultural, social, and art history when we assume that colors have always signified what they do today.

Filled with entertaining and enlightening anecdotes, Green shows that the color has been ambivalent: a symbol of life, luck, and hope, but also disorder, greed, poison, and the devil. Chemically unstable, green pigments were long difficult to produce and even harder to fix. Not surprisingly, the color has been associated with all that is changeable and fleeting: childhood, love, and money. Only in the Romantic period did green definitively become the color of nature.

Pastoureau also explains why the color was connected with the Roman emperor Nero, how it became the color of Islam, why Goethe believed it was the color of the middle class, why some nineteenth-century scholars speculated that the ancient Greeks couldn't see green, and how the color was denigrated by Kandinsky and the Bauhaus.

More broadly, Green demonstrates that the history of the color is, to a large degree, one of dramatic reversal: long absent, ignored, or rejected, green today has become a ubiquitous and soothing presence as the symbol of environmental causes and the mission to save the planet.

With its striking design and compelling text, Green will delight anyone who is interested in history, culture, art, fashion, or media.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691159362
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	08/24/2014
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	450,449
Product dimensions:	9.40(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

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

Table of Contents

Introduction 7

An uncertain color (From the beginning to the year 1000) 11
Did the Greeks see green? 14
Green among the Romans 20
The emerald and the leek 26
Hippodrome green 31
The silences of the Bible and the church fathers 36
A middle color 40
Islamic green 46

A courtly color (11th-14th centuries) 51
The beauty of green 54
A place for green: the orchard 58
A time for green: the spring 65
Youth, love, and hope 71
A chivalrous color 78
A green hero: Tristan 83

A dangerous color (14th-16th centuries) 87
Satan's green bestiary 90
From green to greenish 97
The green knight 103
The dyer's vats 112
"Gay green" and "lost green" 118
Heraldic green 125
The colors of the poet 129

A secondary color (16th-19th centuries) 135
Protestant morals 138
The green of painters 142
New knowledge, new classifications 152
Alceste's ribbons and the green of the theater 155
Superstitions and fairy tales 159
Green in the age of the enlightenment 167
A romantic color? 172

A soothing color (19th-21st centuries) 179
A fashionable color 182
Return to the palette 186
Chevreul and the scientists did not like green 193
Neither did Kandinsky or the Bauhaus 200
Green in everyday life 205
Nature in the heart of the cities 209
Green today 217

Acknowledgments 223
Notes 224
Bibliography 235
Photography credits 240

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Praise for the French edition: "Filled with surprising insights and astonishing details, and as playful and humorous as it is erudite, Michel Pastoureau's Green is an entertaining lesson about the way our visual perceptions are modified by culture. With carefully selected and cleverly captioned illustrations, this beautiful book will appeal to general readers as well as scholars. The writing is simple and effective, making for an easy and entertaining read."—Jean-Baptiste Evette, prize-winning French novelist and translator

Praise for the French edition: This book is a rare fusion of accessible, entertaining writing and rich humanistic learning. Much of the argument is made through historical anecdotes, and Pastoureau has a knack for finding stories that are both instructive and interesting. Green should appeal to historians, art historians, and other scholars in the humanities, as well as to a broad general audience."—David O'Brien, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Editorial Reviews

09/01/2014
Pastoureau's engaging cultural history of the color green tackles art history and color theory, much like the author's previous books on Blue (2001) and Black (2008). With the look and feel of an artbook, this book holds equal amounts of substance of in the text. Pastoureau recalls green's "social, cultural and symbolic history in European societies, from Greek antiquity to the present." The chronological approach proves effective. The author begins by examining green in classical Greek sculptures and Roman mural paintings. The chapters on the Middle Ages and Age of Enlightenment focus more on the religious texts. Green is rarely mentioned in the Bible but when it is, Pastoureau notes, the color is nearly always about grass or vegetation, "never an object, fabric, or article of clothing." When something is "greenish," it is usually associated with death. His anecdotes are insightful, the references occasionally delightfully esoteric. Pastoureau gradually returns the conversation to the present-day, citing green's current associations with health, hygiene and the environment. In so doing, he gives this substantial discussion further contemporary relevance. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"It ain't easy being . . . a book about the colour green. Pastoureau shows us what green has signified at various points in various cultures, and the book illuminates the journey with its bright design."

Globe and Mail

"Taking great care not to project present-day definitions, classifications, and conceptions of color onto the past, he follows green's history from early negative associations and its notoriously fugitive pigments to its evolved status as the color of money, fecundity, nature, and environmental concerns. . . . As a companion volume to the author's previous titles, Blue and Black, or as a stand-alone work, this highly anecdotal and beautifully written book belongs in the collection of every library."

Choice

"Michel Pastoureau's Green: The History of a Color is an interesting look at how this sometimes forgotten hue has been perceived in art, fashion, and culture. Beautiful art and a thorough historical survey make this book an irresistible read."

Traditional Home

"One of The Guardian’s Best Books of 2014"

One of TheAustralian.com’s "In the Good Books 2014

One of The Globe and Mail 75 Book Ideas for Christmas 2014

From the Publisher

"Beautifully illustrated."

Daily Mail

"We absolutely loved this book and we didn't merely read it, we read it twice. . . . Colors are not just colors: they have a history and we can't imagine it ever being superseded by anything more than what Michel Pastoureau has accomplished in his monumental work, Green. Designers of all ilks everywhere need to read this book, and the prior colors (Blue and Black) and future colors he comes out with as well. The thought process, planning and impeccable research that must have gone into this book is prodigious. . . . [T]hough Kermit said it's not easy being green, reading this book is an easy decision! . . . This is a hefty tome that lends credence to the academic side of fashion theory. . . . Pastoureau has provided us with a tour de force erudite approach to color. . . . [P]ut it on your Christmas gift list for anyone in the fashion or art world. It's a must to own, and so much fun as a read. Academically speaking, it's popular culture at its best. . . . Green is highly recommended by Whom You Know!"

Whom You Know

"Michel Pastoureau's Green: The History of a Color is an interesting look at how this sometimes forgotten hue has been perceived in art, fashion, and culture. Beautiful art and a thorough historical survey make this book an irresistible read."

Traditional Home

"Beautifully illustrated."

Daily Mail

11/01/2014
Green with envy? Greenback? Babar green? What does the color green mean to you? Continuing the saga of the history of colors (previous titles include Blue and Black), Pastoureau, a historian at the Sorbonne, chronicles the color green as told through the social and culture history of western Europe. Readers journey through this bipolar color's varied meanings, such as life, luck, destiny, happiness, and money, as well as its flip side of the devil, poison, witches, treachery, and betrayal, which depended on the period, society, and technology being used to create the color. While the book focuses on western European cultures, Islam is briefly mentioned. One wonders if a global history might have made for a better book. VERDICT A charming study, filled with numerous photos and illustrations. This book will be of great interest to those fascinated by history, culture, and design.—Melissa Aho, Univ. of Minnesota Bio-Medical Lib., Minneapolis

Library Journal