Cromorama How colour transforms our vision of the world

Colour informs, seduces, narrates, orders, camouflages?

"To understand colour we must listen to the voices of philosophers and dyers, biologists and artists, writers and businessmen, physicists and astrologers, but also salesmen, confectioners and others."
Riccardo Falcinelli

Why does Mondrian never use green and Hitchcock uses it in abundance? Why are yellow pencils more successful? Why does Flaubert dress Madame Bovary in blue? Although it may seem obvious to us, talking about flat colours or considering blue as a cold colour are very recent inventions. We may not realise it, but even when we are looking at a Renaissance painting, we have the yellow of the Simpsons in mind. Those who know the colour of television can no longer see the world with the eyes of the past. The stories and examples collected in Chromoramanos reveal the extent to which colour is a filter through which we view reality.

In a book as colourful as it is fun, which is also a "history of our modern gaze and how it has been formed", Falcinelli traces a fascinating universe of images from painting, literature, film, comics and everyday objects, which are shown to us in an unusual and surprising way. All societies have constructed symbolic systems in which colour played a central role - black for mourning, red for communism, the blue of the Virgin's mantle - but technology and the market have accustomed us to new perceptions and changed the way we see the world.

Critics have said
"A beautiful, particular book. Falcinelli has managed to write a book about colours that covers the technical aspects without abandoning fun that rarely happens. A miracle."
Corrado Augias

"Of a dazzling beauty. An object that triggers desire, full of enchanting images."
Elena Stancanelli,LaRepubblica

Publisher: Taurus