As a pigment, white is often thought to represent an absence of color, but it is without doubt an important color in its own right, just like red, blue, green, or yellow--and, like them, white has its own intriguing history. In this richly illustrated book, Michel Pastoureau, a celebrated authority on the history of colors, presents a fascinating visual, social, and cultural history of the color white in European societies, from antiquity to today. Illustrated throughout with a wealth of captivating images ranging from the ancient world to the twenty-first century, White 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 color 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. Nor has white 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 color has often been associated with purity, virginity, innocence, wisdom, peace, beauty, and cleanliness. With its striking design and compelling text, White is a colorful history of a surprisingly vivid and various color.
Introduction -- The Color of the Gods: from earliest times to the beginning of Christianity -- From nature to culture -- The moon and the sacred -- A false image: white Greece -- Wool and linen: dressing in white -- The lessons of the lexicon -- White versus black -- The Color of Christ: fourth to fourteenth centuries -- Biblical white -- A Christian color -- White versus red -- Regarding the lily: a white floriary -- The Lamb, the swan, and the dove: a white bestiary -- A feminine color -- The Color of Kings: fifteenth to eighteenth centuries -- The birth of a symbolic system -- White, first among the colors -- Birth and death in white -- The color of nobility -- The white of the monarchy -- Ink and paper -- The Color of Modernity: eighteenth to twenty-first centuries -- White and black: no longer colors -- The white of artists -- From cleanliness to health -- Dressing in white -- Lexicons and symbols.