Colour: For Designers and Artists by Paul Zelanski and Mary Pat Fisher (review)

patterns are abstract and others represent planets, landscapes, trees, lakes and clouds. They are computergenerated 'forgeries' of nature (insofar as they are not in any case abstract patterns). This book is about the making of such images. It contains programs, descriptions of how such programs are constructed ('algorithrns ') and quite a bit of mathematics . Although the book is rich in information , it is poorly organised. For example , it is a major feat (not accomplished by this reviewer) to find exactly where in the text each of the 36 colour plates is referred to, and it contains neither a list of technical terms nor of abbreviations, making the book difficult to use. Barnsley's book is specialised while trying to be popular, and uses mathematics while trying to explain things to the nonspecialist. These procedures are stimulating and exciting (as is the subject matter of the book) but make the book difficult to read and learn from. This is understandable, since the book is based on the notes for a course of lectures given in California in 1987. The problems indicated here would hardly arise with the lecturers close by and ready to explain . The book can be recommended only to those who are thorough and persistent in their study. THE STRUCTURIST: TRANSPARENCY AND REFLECTION, Issue 27/28. Eli Bornstein, ed., Box 378, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon S7N OWO, Canada. Paper, $22.50. ISSN 00816027 . 'Transparency and Reflection', and aspects of these as they occur in nature , art and architecture, is the theme of this double issue of The Structurist. Articles include "Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: Alchemist of Transparency " by Alain Findeli, "The Presence of Absence: The Aesthetics of Transparency in Russian Modernism" byJohn E. Bowlt, "Reflection and Transparency in Music" by M. K. Floyd, "Transparency and Reflection in Sculpture and Architecture" by Andrew Stonyer and 17 additonal articles as well as poems, photographic essays and book reviews. The artists 456 Current Literature whose work is discussed includeJohn Constable, Paul Cezanne, Mary Martin , Claude Monet,Jean Gorin, Hartmut Bohm, Klaus Staudt, Victor Passmore , and Elizabeth Willmott. An article by Richard Kostelanetz argues, perhaps unconvincingly, for MoholyNagy as a proto-holographer. As Kostelanetz notes, Moholy-Nagy neither wrote about nor used holography , since it had not yet been invented . The keynote essay by Eli Bornstein , "Aspects of Transparency and Reflection", outlines the theoretical uses of the theme and discusses the use of transparent and reflecting materials in art and architecture. His closing remarks argue that "in art, the possibility of utilizing the actual, as opposed to represented, elements of transparency and reflection remains as a promising yet difficult new frontier ". This is surely true. Most contemporary artists still work with the arbitrary limitation of painted media on the static canvas viewed under direct illumination. At the time of the Russian modernists, there was already a large number of new media that used other means to manipulate light reaching the eye from an artwork. It has taken several generations of artists for the modernists' vision to be seriously examined again. COLOR CHEMISTRY: SYNTHESIS, PROPERTIES AND APPLICATIONS OF ORGANIC DYES AND PIGMENTS by Heinrich Zollinger. VCH Verlagsgesellschaft , Weinheim, Federal Republic of Germany, 1987. 367 pp., iIIus. Trade. ISBN 3-527-26200-8 (Weinheim). This technical book addressed to chemists begins with short yet informative sections on subjects such as the classification of colorants (dyes and pigments), the history of colorants, concepts of color, chemical structure and color, fluorescence, colorimetry and color vision. Seven chaptershalf the book-discuss the synthesis of important colorants. Later chapters discuss the chemistry of dyeing; the physical conditioning and methods of application of pigments; the types and chemistry of fluorescent brighteners; photo-, thermo- and electrochemical reactions of colorants; chemiluminescence; dye lasers; dyes in color photography and reprography ; food colors; and diverse applications in science. The scope of the book is vast. The numerous references guide the reader to up-to-date sources for deeper study. COLOUR: FOR DESIGNERS AND ARTISTS by Paul Zelanski and Mary Pat Fisher. The Herbert Press, London, U.K., 1989. 144 pp., iIIus. Paper, £12.95. ISBN: 0-906060-95-6. The understanding and use of colour is one of the artist's greatest challenges . This authoritative...