Michel Pastoureau publishes a new book on colour in painting
At 79, the historian Michel Pastoureau is releasing La Couleur dans la peinture. De la préhistoire au XXᵉ siècle with Seuil. The medievalist, whose sight is affected by a rare autoimmune disease, continues his long work on the symbolism of colour.
The book fits into a body of work that already includes more than a hundred essays on colour and animals. For Pastoureau, colour is not only something to see: it is also a matter of history, ideas, habits, and cultural meaning.
For artists and for readers interested in drawing and painting, that perspective is a reminder that colour is read as much as it is seen. It invites us to think about pigment, contrast, and chromatic choices as part of how an image is built, from prehistory to the 20th century.
The book also carries a particular force because the historian’s own sight is now impaired. In its own way, his work suggests that an artist’s or draughtsman’s eye is never just a matter of immediate sensation, but also of a learned way of seeing and thinking.
Source : Le Monde – Arts