Summary
Michel Pastoureau: Colors of our memories
"Physicists and chemists do not see colors in the same way as neurologists and biologists. But the historian, sociologist and anthropologist see them in a third way. For them - and in general, for all the humanities - color is defined and studied primarily as a social fact. Before nature, pigment, eye or brain, it is society that "makes" color, that gives it definition and meaning, that changes its codes and values, that organizes its applications and determines its roles.
Talking about color means talking about the history of words and linguistic facts, pigments and dyes, painting and painting techniques. This also means talking about its place in everyday life, about the codes and systems that follow it, the regulations that come from the government, about the ethics and symbols established by religions, about the speculations of scientists, about the achievements of artists. The fields of research and thinking are manifold and present many questions to the scientist."
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