It changed the way that I looked at some of the old familiar works. In these two pp.
chapters as well as the others, I appreciated the further reading lists included. What do Bridget Riley, an abstract painter; John Mollon, Whether or not color is part of our profession, it has a Reader in Experimental Psychology at Cambridge Unimeaning, probably a different meaning, for each of us. It versity; Denis Baylor, a visual physiologist; John Gage, provides a meeting point for art and science. So does an art historian; Malcolm Longair, a natural philosopher; this book. John Mollon, concluded his essay, ''Seeing Peter Parks, a director and producer of films, who also colour,'' with the statement, ''In other words, we judge specializes in marine biology and special effects; John colours by the company they keep.'' This could have Lyons, a linguist; and David Bomford, Senior Restorer been selected as the theme transcending all the essays, of Paintings at the National Gallery, have in common?
from the discussion of shadowing in the history of art, They all gave presentations in the Darwin College Lecture through colour for the painter, to camouflage in nature, Series on Colour: Art and Science. Their eight essays are the associations of red with fire in culture (Is fire red?), collected into a handy and colorful volume with the same and language. Are the red and green terms in the Hanunoo title as the lecture series. The book is edited by Trevor language denoting a traditional color axis, or rather are Lamb and Janine Bourriau and published by Cambridge they a wetness vs. dryness (freshness vs. desiccation) University Press.
dimension? These essays enlarge the readers perspective The collection has the following structure. The first for color. I can think of no other book that brings such two chapters are on art and art history. Then comes the different views of color together so well. Colour Art & physics of color, followed by the eye and how it works, Science is a book you will want to own, and is a real and seeing color. Then follows an essay on color in nature.
steal for the price. The final two essays in the book deal with color in culture and linguistics. Each of the contributors is so well versed ELLEN C. CARTER that all the essays reach through history and across professional barriers.
Let me take Peter Parks' essay, ''Colour in Nature,'' Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice, Second as an example of how each chapter is rich and diverse, Edition in C, by James D. Foley, Andries van Dam, having something of interest for everyone. First, this essay Steven K. Feiner, and John F. Hughes, Addison-Wesprobably would be more correctly titled ''Colour in ley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachusetts, Aquatic Life,'' however, please do not take that as a 1996, Hardbound, 1174 pp., $68.81 limiting factor. Putting that aside, Mr. Parks begins with a little color science, the challenges of photography in the aquatic environment, then moves quickly into perception Any serious computer graphics programmer's or researcher's collection is incomplete without a copy of factors of both humans and other animals. For the artist, who is interested in pigments, he talks about the sources Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice. This book has long been a definitive computer graphics reference. of coloring materials and the influence of the environment on the colors produced. Contrasting the biological pig-Written to be used both as a textbook (complete with exercises at the end of every chapter) and as a reference ments and dyes, he goes on to talk about the types of color, such as interference colors produced by specific book, this book assumes little or no prior knowledge on the reader's part, but covers most topics in considerable structures. Then, for the biologist, he talks about the reasons and uses of color including mimicry, camouflage, depth. In keeping with the fact that most computer code written nowadays is in the C programming language, this and warning. In all these areas, as well as examples of bioluminescence and transparency, the essay is enhanced most recent version has all of the examples in C rather than in Pascal. by interesting color figures exemplifying the points.
Perhaps because I am usually preoccupied with the The book contains 21 chapters, which span the broad field of computer graphics. Chapter 4 introduces graphics science of color and its measurement, I particularly enjoyed the other approaches to color found in this book.
hardware technology. It begins by explaining DVST and CRT technologies, and then covers CRT displays in To me, the chapter, ''History of Colour in Art,'' by David Bomford was fascinating. Also, I thoroughly enjoyed depth, describing, for example, random-scan displays, 65