LONDON SMOKE, BABY PINK Blue, red, white, green, yellow, black… And then? How many colors? Don’t ask the rainbow: it’s a magician. It shows us only that which we want to see. Children, who search for the treasure at the feet of its rays, know well: the colors disappear as soon as you try [...]
FROM MOURNING TO ELEGANCE “Nero, non è nero…nero!” (Black, he’s not black…black!) And all the worse for the song. Certainly, it’s about a color to be taken with the masses, like coal, but not as uniform and desperate – not so black – as one tends to believe. The proof: if it still follows [...]
FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE FRANCE OF ROI SOLEIL Throughout the 1500s the extreme religious strictness imposed by the Protestant Reformation and then the Counter Reformation brought about a backlash resulting in more austere forms and the triumph of black, and in Catholic areas the imitation of models imposed by the Spanish court. At the [...]
FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE FRANCE OF ROI SOLEIL The Renaissance witnessed the height, but also the beginning of the decline of the textile industry on the peninsula. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the Italian style, with its classicism, fullness and harmonious colors, spread throughout Europe. This style required increasingly monumental lines, and [...]
After the year 1000, one of the most powerful engines of the economic boom lead by Italian city-states was textile manufacturing. Weavers and dyers joined into influential corporations, and each city featured its own production specialties: Florence, Bologna and Milan in wool; Naples in hemp and linen; Venice, Florence and Genoa in silk. Venice in particular, [...]
Nothing is farther from the truth about the image of the Middle Ages, so widespread in common knowledge, as the uncontested “dark” kingdom. Actually the symbolism and mysticism of light as divine manifestation, typical of medieval culture, were translated into an explosion of color. The reflection of cathedrals’ stained glass windows reverberated in fashion, [...]
While the Orient pursued a path of opulence and refinement, it wasn’t as if the West had simply lost itself in decadence. On the contrary, even the barbarian civilizations, with their initially rough and multi-colored clothing, introduced new contributions destined to remain sculpted in European culture. The new customs featured the use of abstract [...]
ALL THE COLOURS OF INFAMY I don’t like him much! In the small world of colours, yellow is the outsider, stateless, the one which others mistrust and who is devoted to infamy. Yellow like fading photographs, like dying leaves, like betraying men… Judas’ robe was yellow. In olden times, forger’s homes were daubed with [...]
NEVER PUTS ALL HIS CARDS ON THE TABLE How boring! Nowadays it’s all about green: green belts, green gasoline, green trains, green Parties… Even trash bins are painted with this colour which should evoke nature and cleanliness. That’s enough! The symbol is too good to be true, and thus we’re better off being wary, [...]
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