The Theory of Color in its Relation to Art and Art-Industry.
Boston: L. Prang, 1876. Octavo. xxxiii, 274pp., + thirteen plates. American edition, revised and enlarged by the author. With an introduction by Edward C. Pickering, a professor of Physics at MIT. Illustrated throughout with many woodcuts, as well as the thirteen chromolithographed plates. The first plate depicts the spectra of sunlight and color pigments, and the second plate shows Bezold's versions of color wheels. Other plates illustrate the illusion of how colors appear to change when juxtaposed against other colors. Six of the plates have text printed in black on paper of various colors, with white tissue guards. When overlaid with the tissue, the black lettering appears to take on tinges of color. Bezold was a physicist and meteorologist working at the Royal Polytechnic School in Munich, and his approach to color theory was intended to be practical for artists and those working in applied arts. Many of his examples are drawn from the decorative arts throughout history, especially from textiles and ornamental mosaics. According to "A Color Bibliography" by Robert L. Herbert, published in the Yale University Library Gazette, "Bezold represents the generation beyond Maxwell and Helmholz, when the distinction between color-light and color-pigment was at last clearly understood in the scientific world." Bound in original light brown cloth, gilt-titled to spine. First signature slightly loose, some wear to spine ends, else fine. Item #23712
(Yale University Library Gazette 49, No. 1, July).
Price: $1,500.00