Chapter 2
History of Color
IN THIS CHAPTER
Understanding the origin of color
Exploring cave paintings
Discovering the story of purple through the ages
Experiencing contemporary color
When I told my Dummies editor that I wanted to write a long chapter about the history of color, she replied, “Dummies books are short on history and long on action.” I see her point: She knows that readers want to start working with the topic at hand: color!
To keep this chapter short, I chose a few topics on the history of color, knowing full well that this discussion has large gaps. To bring a little more history to the book, I’ve also peppered each chapter with historical examples. Like any field of study, color theory has a long history of ideas, methods, and observations.
In this chapter, you get a brief foundation of the history of color in ways that relate to how you might work with color today. You also look at examples of how contemporary artists work with color.
Early Humans and Color
Before cities, agriculture, and written language, humans living as hunter-gatherers created cave wall paintings ...
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