Gray is the Color (review)

80 Books the various methods of modelling in terms of variations in lightness or darkness, intensity and hue-but much of the analysis in diagrammatic form seems to me quite pointless. A chart plotting the occurrence of colours in a painting in terms of hue and lightness, or hue and intensity, but with no indication of the amount of surface covered by each colour plotted, tells one virtually nothing about the colour quality of the picture and certainly does not warrant the use of the term ‘colour score’. A traditional musical score gives detailed instructions for performing a piece of music; this ‘colour score’ indicates only which pigments might be used. All the information so laboriously recorded and plotted-and much more besides-can be gleaned from a quick glance at a colour reproduction of the picture, even a much reduced one of moderate quality. Finally, there is a thorough description of the Pope colour solid, simple as it is, with a comparison to the Munsell system that is not entirely fair. One is led to believe that the Munsell system is complicated and full of aberrations, while the Pope solid is simple and straightforward , but the real question is-What can the latter do that the former cannot? The answer is-not much. Yet, in spite of its shortcomings, the author pursues a worthy aim. I am sure that an appreciation and understanding of art can be enhanced by a factual knowledge of colour and that students of art, whether painters or scholars, benefit more from the kind of course that Pope gave at Harvard than from the mystical fantasy that is becoming popular in art schools nowadays. One needs to adapt the clear-headed approach of science to the needs of the student of art without losing the sense of wonder or the emotive response that colour can evoke so powerfully . After all, if we did not actually enjoy colour, there would be no colour science. Pope emerges from this book as a likeable man and an excellent teacher and it will be a good thing if this effort by his pupils serves to encourage the approach to colour studies that he fostered. As to the system it promotes, I think that they are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill ; Pope himself said that it was intended only as a rough introduction to the idea of colour order and was an inadequate basis for further development-and he was quite right. But colour enthusiasts will want to add the book to their collections. Gray is the Color. Exhibition catalogue. Grisaille painting, XIIIth-XXth centuries, exhibited at the Rice Museum, Houston, Texas. Catalogue by Dominique de Menil et nl. Published by The Institute for the Arts, Rice University, Houston, Texas, 1974. 171 pp., illus. Reviewed by Frank Covino* This catalogue is a delightful menu describing a feast that I wish I could have attended. The antipasto may be misleading. A collection of 116 grisaille paintings, borrowed from points as far east as Strasbourg, France, to Mill Valley, California, reveals a classic approach to painting practiced from the 13th century to the present time. Traditionally, the term grisoille has come to be accepted as a monochromatic rendering of tonal values spread between black and white. While the term’s French interpretation is taken asgmny, many painters have used other colors as the basic hue from which they mix their values, as the verdnccio or green tones of some early Renaissance Italians or the bistre or umber tones of Rubens. Whatever the basic hue, the primary purpose of completing a grisaille is to separate the problems of form from the costume of color. Any painter well schooled in the tradition of academic painting is aware of this technical device. Form is the foundation; color is the facade. The academic learning process for at least four centuries has followed this structure: (I) Apprenticeship. Cennini tells *Academy of Art, Fairfield Y.M.C.A., 841 Old Post Road, Fairfield, CT 06430, U.S.A. us the study of drawing on paper should take at least one year. Drawing is the first exposure to dark and light values. (2) The next...