The Theory of Color in Its Relation to Art and Art-Industry

...Translated from the German by S.R. Koehler...with an introduction and notes by Edward C. Pickering...Authorized American Edition. Revised and enlarged by the author. Illustrated by chromo-lithographic plates and woodcuts. Publisher's red cloth 8vo, 274pp. Thirteen chromolithograph plates, including frontispiece, and copious woodcut illustrations throughout. Very good with rubbing to extremities, bumping to spine ends; mild foxing and offsetting from the color frontispiece limited to the front matter. The purple plate has a small smudge, otherwise an overwhelming nice, clean copy. Complete.The first American edition of "Die Farbenlehre im hinblick auf Kunst und Kunstgewerbe," distinguished by the author in the preface as "not simply a translation, but in reality a new edition... enriched with an additional number of colored plates, which, I believe, will be found to have materially enhanced its value, and which will contribute largely to a clearer understanding of the text." The first four chapters are dedicated to the physiological aspects of color, the fifth chapter is dedicated to the character of color in artistic and art-historical contexts--a subject for which the author acknowledges he has more enthusiasm than expertise. The concluding section of the book features the brilliantly hued color plates printed by Prang, including a 3-part series of plates (2 die-cut) illustrating the theory of contrast, and 6 plates with bold black text on flat color pages, intended to be interpreted with and without their white tissue guards, exemplify how the perception of a color is altered by its relation to adjacent and additive colors--now known as the "Bezold effect."A major influence in Josef Albers' 'Interaction of Color' and Johannes Itten's 'Elements of Color.' "It is intended to connect, by an intellectual chain, the mass of isolated observations which every artist must make, and continues to make daily; to awaken and to intensify the interest in, and the feeling for, color; and to increase and to purify the comprehension of its importance in art." Strong, clean copy, scarce on the market.