The Key of Green
Passion and Perception in Renaissance Culture
9780226763781
9780226763811
The Key of Green
Passion and Perception in Renaissance Culture
From Shakespeare’s “green-eyed monster” to the “green thought in a green shade” in Andrew Marvell’s “The Garden,” the color green was curiously prominent and resonant in English culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Among other things, green was the most common color of household goods, the recommended wall color against which to view paintings, the hue that was supposed to appear in alchemical processes at the moment base metal turned to gold, and the color most frequently associated with human passions of all sorts. A unique cultural history, The Key of Green considers the significance of the color in the literature, visual arts, and popular culture of early modern England.
Contending that color is a matter of both sensation and emotion, Bruce R. Smith examines Renaissance material culture—including tapestries, clothing, and stonework, among others—as well as music, theater, philosophy, and nature through the lens of sense perception and aesthetic pleasure. At the same time, Smith offers a highly sophisticated meditation on the nature of consciousness, perception, and emotion that will resonate with students and scholars of the early modern period and beyond. Like the key to a map, The Key of Green provides a guide for looking, listening, reading, and thinking that restores the aesthetic considerations to criticism that have been missing for too long.
Contending that color is a matter of both sensation and emotion, Bruce R. Smith examines Renaissance material culture—including tapestries, clothing, and stonework, among others—as well as music, theater, philosophy, and nature through the lens of sense perception and aesthetic pleasure. At the same time, Smith offers a highly sophisticated meditation on the nature of consciousness, perception, and emotion that will resonate with students and scholars of the early modern period and beyond. Like the key to a map, The Key of Green provides a guide for looking, listening, reading, and thinking that restores the aesthetic considerations to criticism that have been missing for too long.
336 pages | 30 color plates, 25 halftones, 8 musical examples | 6 x 9 | © 2008
Art: European Art
Literature and Literary Criticism: British and Irish Literature, General Criticism and Critical Theory
Music: General Music
Reviews
Table of Contents
Introduction About Green
Chapter One Light at 500–510 Nanometers and the Seventeenth-Century Crisis of Consciousness
Chapter Two Green Stuff
Chapter Three Between Black and White
Chapter Four Green Spectacles
Chapter Five Listening for Green
Chapter Six The Curtain between The Theatre and The Globe
Afterword Coloring Books
Notes
Index
Chapter One Light at 500–510 Nanometers and the Seventeenth-Century Crisis of Consciousness
Chapter Two Green Stuff
Chapter Three Between Black and White
Chapter Four Green Spectacles
Chapter Five Listening for Green
Chapter Six The Curtain between The Theatre and The Globe
Afterword Coloring Books
Notes
Index
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