{"title":"Michel Pastoureau","description":"\u003cp\u003eMichel Pastoureau explores the rich symbolism and cultural histories embedded in colours and animals, revealing how they shape our perceptions across time. His works delve into the arts, traditions, and societal meanings behind everyday elements such as black, blue, and bears, offering a unique lens on history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eReaders can immerse themselves in Pastoureau’s meticulous research and engaging storytelling, which blend \u003cem\u003eArts \u0026amp; Culture\u003c\/em\u003e with historical inquiry. His insightful narrative brings to life the colours of memory and identity, inviting reflection on the layers of meaning that colour our world.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"black-by-michel-pastoureau-9780691139302","title":"Black","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBlack\u003c\/em\u003e—favourite colour of priests and penitents, artists and ascetics, fashion designers and fascists—has always stood for powerfully opposed ideas: authority and humility, sin and holiness, rebellion and conformity, wealth and poverty, good and bad.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this beautiful and richly illustrated book, the acclaimed author of \u003cem\u003eBlue\u003c\/em\u003e now tells the fascinating social history of the colour black in Europe. In the beginning was black, Michel Pastoureau tells us. The archetypal colour of darkness and death, black was associated in the early Christian period with hell and the devil but also with monastic virtue.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the medieval era, black became the habit of courtiers and a hallmark of royal luxury. Black took on new meanings for early modern Europeans as they began to print words and images in black and white, and to absorb Isaac Newton's announcement that black was no colour after all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDuring the romantic period, black was melancholy's friend, while in the twentieth century black (and white) came to dominate art, print, photography, and film, and was finally restored to the status of a true colour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFor Pastoureau, the history of any colour must be a social history first because it is societies that give colours everything from their changing names to their changing meanings—and black is exemplary in this regard. In dyes, fabrics, and clothing, and in painting and other artworks, black has always been a forceful—and ambivalent—shaper of social, symbolic, and ideological meaning in European societies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith its striking design and compelling text, \u003cem\u003eBlack\u003c\/em\u003e will delight anyone who is interested in the history of fashion, art, media, or design.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Ingram Book Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45915810627820,"sku":"9780691139302","price":70.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780691139302_106af9a5-5d9c-4159-b68a-ae46c4ee34eb.jpg?v=1732056318"},{"product_id":"blue-by-michel-pastoureau-9780691181363","title":"Blue","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA beautifully illustrated visual and cultural history of the colour blue throughout the ages.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBlue has had a long and topsy-turvy history in the Western world. While the ancient Greeks scorned it as ugly and barbaric, most Americans and Europeans now cite it as their favourite colour. In this fascinating history, the renowned medievalist Michel Pastoureau traces the changing meanings of blue—from its rare appearance in prehistoric art to its international ubiquity today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAny history of colour is, above all, a social history. Pastoureau investigates how the ever-changing role of blue in society has been reflected in manuscripts, stained glass, heraldry, clothing, paintings, and popular culture. Beginning with the almost total absence of blue from ancient Western art and language, the story moves to medieval Europe. As people began to associate blue with the Virgin Mary, the colour became a powerful element in church decoration and symbolism.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBlue gained new favour as a royal colour in the twelfth century and became a formidable political and military force during the French Revolution. As blue triumphed in the modern era, new shades were created and it became the colour of romance and the blues.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFinally, Pastoureau follows blue into contemporary times, when military clothing gave way to the everyday uniform of blue jeans and blue became the universal and unifying colour of the Earth as seen from space.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBeautifully illustrated, \u003cem\u003eBlue\u003c\/em\u003e tells the intriguing story of our favourite colour and the cultures that have hated it, loved it, and made it essential to some of our greatest works of art.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Ingram Book Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45964707561708,"sku":"9780691181363","price":101.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780691181363.jpg?v=1733359375"},{"product_id":"red-by-michel-pastoureau-9780691172774","title":"Red","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA beautifully illustrated visual and cultural history of the colour red throughout the ages. The colour red has represented many things, from the life force and the divine to love, lust, and anger. Up through the Middle Ages, red held a place of privilege in the Western world. For many cultures, red was not just one colour of many but rather the only colour worthy enough to be used for social purposes. In some languages, the word for red was the same as the word for colour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe first colour developed for painting and dyeing, red became associated in antiquity with war, wealth, and power. In the medieval period, red held both religious significance, as the colour of the blood of Christ and the fires of Hell, and secular meaning, as a symbol of love, glory, and beauty. Yet during the Protestant Reformation, red began to decline in status. Viewed as indecent and immoral and linked to luxury and the excesses of the Catholic Church, red fell out of favour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAfter the French Revolution, red gained new respect as the colour of progressive movements and radical left-wing politics. In this beautifully illustrated book, \u003cem\u003eRed\u003c\/em\u003e, Michel Pastoureau, the acclaimed author of \u003cem\u003eBlue, Black, and Green\u003c\/em\u003e, now masterfully navigates centuries of symbolism and complex meanings to present the fascinating and sometimes controversial history of the colour red. Pastoureau illuminates red's evolution through a diverse selection of captivating images, including the cave paintings of Lascaux, the works of Renaissance masters, and the modern paintings and stained glass of Mark Rothko and Josef Albers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Ingram Book Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45964711624940,"sku":"9780691172774","price":79.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780691172774.jpg?v=1733362300"},{"product_id":"white-by-michel-pastoureau-9780691243498","title":"White","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs a pigment, white is often thought to represent an absence of colour, but it is without doubt an important colour in its own right, just like red, blue, green, or yellow. Like them, white has its own intriguing history. In this richly illustrated book, Michel Pastoureau, a celebrated authority on the history of colours, presents a fascinating visual, social, and cultural history of the colour white in European societies, from antiquity to today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIllustrated throughout with a wealth of captivating images ranging from the ancient world to the twenty-first century, \u003ci\u003eWhite\u003c\/i\u003e examines the evolving place, perception, and meaning of this deceptively simple but complex hue in art, fashion, literature, religion, science, and everyday life across the millennia. Before the seventeenth century, white's status as a true colour was never contested. On the contrary, from antiquity until the height of the Middle Ages, white formed, with red and black, a chromatic triad that played a central role in life and art. White has not always been thought of as the opposite of black; through the Middle Ages, the true opposite of white was red. White also has an especially rich symbolic history, and the colour has often been associated with purity, virginity, innocence, wisdom, peace, beauty, and cleanliness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith its striking design and compelling text, \u003ci\u003eWhite\u003c\/i\u003e is a colourful history of a surprisingly vivid and various colour.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e[Pastoureau] traces the use and significance of the colour from the walls of the Lascaux caves and liturgical robes to medieval chess boards and heraldry, to engraving and photography, and the work of the Impressionist painters and contemporary designers... Thorough research and abundant illustrations.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Ingram Book Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45970019221740,"sku":"9780691243498","price":60.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780691243498.jpg?v=1733551751"},{"product_id":"yellow-by-michel-pastoureau-9780691198255","title":"Yellow","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA renowned authority on the history of colour and the author of celebrated volumes on blue, black, green, and red now traces the visual, social, and cultural history of yellow. Focusing on European societies, with comparisons from East Asia, India, Africa, and South America, he tells the intriguing story of the colour's evolving place in art, religion, fashion, literature, and science.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eYellow\u003c\/em\u003e, the author delves into how this vibrant hue has impacted various aspects of society. Through a rich tapestry of historical narrative, the book explores the multifaceted role that yellow has played across different continents and periods.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Ingram Book Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45985196671212,"sku":"9780691198255","price":92.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780691198255.jpg?v=1733978991"},{"product_id":"green-by-michel-pastoureau-9780691159362","title":"Green","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this beautiful and richly illustrated book, the acclaimed author of \u003cem\u003eBlue\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eBlack\u003c\/em\u003e presents a fascinating and revealing history of the colour green in European societies from prehistoric times to today. Examining the evolving place of green in art, clothes, literature, religion, science, and everyday life, Michel Pastoureau traces how culture has profoundly changed the perception and meaning of the colour over millennia—and how we misread cultural, social, and art history when we assume that colours have always signified what they do today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFilled with entertaining and enlightening anecdotes, \u003cem\u003eGreen\u003c\/em\u003e shows that the colour has been ambivalent: a symbol of life, luck, and hope, but also disorder, greed, poison, and the devil. Chemically unstable, green pigments were long difficult to produce and even harder to fix. Not surprisingly, the colour has been associated with all that is changeable and fleeting: childhood, love, and money. Only in the Romantic period did green definitively become the colour of nature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePastoureau also explains why the colour was connected with the Roman emperor Nero, how it became the colour of Islam, why Goethe believed it was the colour of the middle class, why some nineteenth-century scholars speculated that the ancient Greeks couldn't see green, and how the colour was denigrated by Kandinsky and the Bauhaus. More broadly, \u003cem\u003eGreen\u003c\/em\u003e demonstrates that the history of the colour is, to a large degree, one of dramatic reversal: long absent, ignored, or rejected, green today has become a ubiquitous and soothing presence as the symbol of environmental causes and the mission to save the planet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith its striking design and compelling text, \u003cem\u003eGreen\u003c\/em\u003e will delight anyone who is interested in history, culture, art, fashion, or media.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Ingram Book Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46053291884780,"sku":"9780691159362","price":95.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780691159362.jpg?v=1735516310"},{"product_id":"pink-by-michel-pastoureau-9780691266268","title":"Pink","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the acclaimed author of \u003ci\u003eBlue\u003c\/i\u003e and other colour histories, the beautifully illustrated story of pink, from the first ancient pigments to Barbie.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePink has such powerful associations today that it's hard to imagine the colour could ever have meant anything different. But it's only since the introduction of the Barbie doll in 1959 that pink has become decisively feminised. Indeed, in the eighteenth century, pink was frequently masculine, and the colour has signified many things beyond gender over the course of its long history—from the prim to the vulgar, and from the romantic to the eccentric.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this richly illustrated book, Michel Pastoureau, a celebrated authority on the history of colours, presents a fascinating visual, social, and cultural history of pink in the West, from antiquity to today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePink pigments first appear in ancient Macedonian paintings, but it was not until the eighteenth century that vivid, saturated pinks were developed for dyeing and painting. At the same time, a popular new flower—the pink rose—finally gave the colour a standard name, and pink, assuming a place in everyday life, began to acquire its own symbolism, distinct from that of red, yellow, or white.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBringing the story up to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, \u003ci\u003ePink\u003c\/i\u003e describes how the colour, both adored and detested, became associated with many other things, from softness and pleasure to nudity and sex.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIllustrated throughout with a wealth of captivating images, \u003ci\u003ePink\u003c\/i\u003e is an entertaining and enlightening account of the evolving role and significance of the colour in art, fashion, literature, religion, science, and everyday life across the millennia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Ingram Book Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46177051738348,"sku":"9780691266268","price":79.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780691266268.jpg?v=1739389755"},{"product_id":"the-colours-of-our-memories-by-michel-pastoureau-9780745655727","title":"The Colours of Our Memories","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat remains of the colours of our childhood? What are our memories of a blue rabbit, a red dress, a yellow bike – and were they really those colours? What colours do we associate with our student years, our first loves, our adult lives? How does colour leave its mark on memory?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn an attempt to answer these and other questions, Michel Pastoureau presents us with a journal about colours that covers half a century. Drawing on personal recollections, he retraces the recent history of colours through an exploration of fashion and clothing, everyday objects and practices, emblems and flags, sport, literature, museums, and art.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis text – playful, poetic, nostalgic – records the life of both the author and his contemporaries. We live in a world increasingly bursting with colour, in which colour remains a focus for memory, a source of delight and, most of all, an invitation to dream.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000772116716,"sku":"9780745655727","price":40.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/12914403482453.jpg?v=1763303480"},{"product_id":"the-bear-by-michel-pastoureau-9780674047822","title":"The Bear","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe oldest discovered statue, fashioned some fifteen to twenty thousand years ago, is of a bear. The lion was not always king. From antiquity to the Middle Ages, the bear's centrality in cults and mythologies left traces in European languages, literatures, and legends from the Slavic East to Celtic Britain. Historian Michel Pastoureau considers how this once venerated creature was deposed by the advent of Christianity and continued to sink lower in the symbolic bestiary before rising again in Pyrrhic triumph as a popular toy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe early Church was threatened by pagan legends of the bear's power, among them a widespread belief that male bears were sexually attracted to women and would violate them, producing half-bear, half-human beings—invincible warriors who founded royal lines. Marked for death by the clergy, bears were massacred. During the Renaissance, the demonic prestige bears had been assigned in biblical allegory was lost to the goat, ass, bat, and owl, who were the devil's new familiars, while the lion was crowned as the symbol of nobility.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOnce the undefeated champions of the Roman arena, prized in princely menageries, bears became entertainers in the marketplace, trained to perform humiliating tricks or muzzled and devoured by packs of dogs for the amusement of humans. By the early twentieth century, however, the bear would return from exile, making its way into the hearts of children everywhere as the teddy bear.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis compelling history in \u003cem\u003eThe Bear\u003c\/em\u003e reminds us that men and bears have always been inseparable, united by a kinship that gradually moved from nature to culture—a bond that continues to this day.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47603203145964,"sku":"9780674047822","price":83.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780674047822-the-bear.jpg?v=1778057450"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.live\/collections\/michel-pastoureau.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}