On Color

By: David Scott Kastan, Stephen Farthing

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Our lives are saturated by color. We live in a world of colors, and color marks our psychological and social existence. But for all color's ubiquity, we don't know much about it. Authors David Scott Kastan and Stephen Farthing offer a fresh and imaginative exploration of one of the most intriguing and least-understood aspects of everyday experience.

Kastan and Farthing, a scholar and a painter, investigate color from numerous perspectives: literary, historical, cultural, anthropological, philosophical, art historical, political, and scientific. In 10 wide-ranging chapters, each devoted to a different color, they examine the various ways colors have shaped and continue to shape our social and moral imaginations. Each individual color becomes the focal point for a consideration of one of the extraordinary ways in which color appears and matters in our lives. This is a remarkably smart, entertaining, and fascinating guide to an elusive topic.

Ranging from Homer to Picasso to The Wizard of Oz, this spirited and radiant audiobook awakens us anew to the role of color in our world.

©2018 David Scott Kastan and Stephen Farthing (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

informative in its composure but dry

although this is a highly informative book on the subject , it's sometimes heavy to listen to and oveall has a bit starchy feel to it .

Excellent contemporary art theory

I was apprehensive going into this book, but do you contemporary references, cultural relevance, an explanation of historical context were excellent! A must read for any art teacher, student, designer. I can’t wait to reread this one!

A surprisingly interesting journey

A surprisingly interesting and meandering journey through colours, theory, literature, art, and philosophy. I wonder whether the issues of *people* as coloured might not have been handled with a little more sensitivity. Otherwise, this took me from Napoleon to Monet, indigo to Ishmael's whale. It was worth the listen.

LOVE

Loved the reading of the amazing words! I zoomed through it so quickly! Couldn’t stop listening :)

Utterly Fascinating

This is such an interesting read. Now whenever I think about specific colors I'll be thinking about this book. There's such a great deal of interesting history and really vibrant with all the color descriptions.

Well paced, beautifully written.

Science, history, art, and emotive prose. I was inspired to look for more information on many of the subjects the authors dipped into. I did not know that I did not know much about color. This book is well worth reading and listening to.

colorful and grey

Content was witty and fun, could've been better contextualized within each chapter. performance was a little too dry, despite it working well with the wit and puns.

A work of art

This book is as perfect as can be. Thanks to the dedicated authors and publishers who decided this was a worthy subject. The narrator is wonderful, setting a standard for excellence.

An interesting concoction of purposes

Though this is a book about color, the direction has a lot less to do with art, technique, or even the science of color and a lot more to do with the history and anthropology of the subject. It is very cerebral reading so one will have to be focusing pretty intently as the language is generally complex and and the grammar is lofty. However, it’s a good and interesting book nonetheless. Though it was not what I was looking for, I was deliberately reading it to learn about something outside of my wheelhouse. It just so happened that it was a different something outside of my wheelhouse!

Cultural history through color

Observations on color through historical and multicultural resources. We’ll documented and expertly read … scholarly but not dry. Mentions of art, literature, & linguistics are complemented by cultural norms, race & symbolism.
Highly recommended.