Colour in art and science
Colour in art and science: a talk for sixth-formers delivered at Study Experiences, Poitiers, Feb 2003.
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COLOUR IN ART AND SCIENCE – Philip Ball
Talk for Study Experiences at Futuroscope, Poitiers, France (2003)
There is a Powerpoint presentation accompanying this talk
Tonight we’re going to think about colour: what it is, where it comes from, and what it means.
Even if we know nothing about the first two-what colour is and where it comes from-we all have ideas about what it means.
[Pick some people and ask them why they like to wear what they’re wearing. See if anyone is wearing yellow, and if not, ask if anyone would (and why not!)]
In China a few hundred you wouldn’t have been wearing yellow either, but for a very different reason: you would be risking a death sentence. Only the Chinese emperor was allowed to wear yellow, right up to the 20th century. The word for yellow and the word for emperor-huang-are the same in Mandarin Chinese. …