Light and colour in Byzantine art
By: Liz James.
Series: Clarendon studies in the history of art
Publisher: Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 157
Subjects: Art, Byzantine; Color in art
Description: This is the first book to investigate the issue of light and colour in Byzantine art. Liz James argues that in neglecting colour, we have not fully understood Byzantine art. She contrasts modern perceptions of colour with ancient Greek and Byzantine ones in order to demonstrate that while we associate colour with hue, the Byzantines emphasised the relative lightness or darkness of a colour.

This emphasis affected both the Byzantines' use of a colour within a work of art, and their conceptual view of a colour. In examining the physical evidence, combined with Byzantine colour vocabulary and Byzantine descriptions of colours, Liz James opens up the issue beyond the purely art historical into a study of art in its historical and perceptual context.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and indexes.