Reading Part 5
You are going to read the introduction to a book about the history of
colour. For questions 31 – 36, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which you think
fits best according to the text.
Introduction to a book about
the history of colour
This book examines how the
ever-changing role of colour in society has been reflected in manuscripts,
stained glass, clothing, painting and popular culture. Colour is a natural
phenomenon, of course, but it is also a complex cultural construct that resists
generalization and, indeed, analysis itself. No doubt this is why serious works
devoted to colour are rare, and rarer still are those that aim to study it in
historical context. Many authors search for the universal or archetypal truths
they imagine reside in colour, but for the historian, such truths do not exist.
Colour is first and foremost a social phenomenon. There is no transcultural
truth to colour perception, despite what many books based on poorly grasped
neurobiology or – even worse – on pseudoesoteric pop psychology would have us
believe. Such books unfortunately clutter the bibliography on the subject, and
even do it harm. The silence of historians on the subject of colour, or more
particularly their difficulty in conceiving colour as a
subject separate from other
historical phenomena, is the result of three different sets of problems. The
first concerns documentation and preservation. We see the colours transmitted
to us by the past as time has altered them and not as they were originally.
Moreover, we see them under light conditions that often are entirely different
from those known by past societies. And finally, over the decades we have
developed the habit of looking at objects from the past in black-and-white
photographs and, despite the current diffusion of colour photography, our ways
of thinking about and reacting to these objects seem to have remained more or
less black and white.
The second set of problems concerns methodology. As soon as the
historian seeks to study colour, he must grapple with a host of factors all at
once: physics, chemistry, materials, and techniques of production, as well as iconography,
ideology, and the symbolic meanings that colours convey. How to make sense of
all of these elements? How can one establish an analytical model facilitating
the study of images and coloured objects? No researcher, no method, has yet
been able to resolve these problems, because among the numerous facts pertaining
to colour, a researcher tends to select those facts that support his study and
to conveniently forget those that contradict it. This is clearly a poor way to
conduct research. And it is made worse by the temptation to apply to the
objects and images of a given historical period information found in texts of
that period. The
proper method – at least in the first phase of analysis – is to proceed
as do palaeontologists (who must study cave paintings without the aid of
texts): by extrapolating from the images and the objects themselves a logic and
a system based on various concrete factors such as the rate of occurrence of
particular objects and motifs, their distribution and disposition. In short,
one undertakes the internal structural analysis with which any study of an image
or coloured object should begin. The third set of problems is philosophical: it
is wrong to project our own conceptions and definitions of colour onto the
images, objects and monuments of past centuries. Our judgements and values are
not those of previous societies (and no doubt they will change again in the
future). For the writer-historian looking at the definitions and taxonomy of
colour, the danger of anachronism is very real. For example, the spectrum with
its natural order of colours was unknown before the seventeenth century, while
the notion of primary and secondary colours did not become common until the
nineteenth century. These are not eternal notions but stages in the ever-changing
history of knowledge. I have reflected on such issues at greater length in my
previous work, so while the present book does address certain of them, for the
most part it is devoted to other topics. Nor is it concerned only with the
history of colour in images and artworks – in any case that area still has many
gaps to be filled. Rather, the aim of this book is to examine all kinds of
objects in order to consider the different facets of the history of colour and
to show how far
beyond the artistic sphere this history reaches. The history of painting
is one thing; that of colour is another, much larger, question. Most studies
devoted to the history of colour err in considering only the pictorial,
artistic or scientific realms. But the lessons to be learned from colour and
its real interest lie elsewhere.
31 What problem regarding colour does the writer explain in the first
paragraph?
A Our view of colour is strongly affected by changing fashion.
B Analysis is complicated by the bewildering number of natural colours.
C Colours can have different associations in different parts of the
world.
D Certain popular books have dismissed colour as insignificant.
32 What is the first reason the writer gives for the lack of academic
work on the history of colour?
A There are problems of reliability associated with the artefacts
available.
B Historians have seen colour as being outside their field of expertise.
C Colour has been rather looked down upon as a fit subject for academic
study.
D Very little documentation exists for historians to use.
33 The writer suggests that the priority when conducting historical
research on colour is to
A ignore the interpretations of other modern day historians.
B focus one’s interest as far back as the prehistoric era.
C find some way of organising the mass of available data.
D relate pictures to information from other sources.
34 In the fourth paragraph, the writer says that the historian writing
about colour should be careful
A not to analyse in an old-fashioned way.
B when making basic distinctions between key ideas.
C not to make unwise predictions.
D when using certain terms and concepts.
35 In the fifth paragraph, the writer says there needs to be further
research done on
A the history of colour in relation to objects in the world around us.
B the concerns he has raised in an earlier publication.
C the many ways in which artists have used colour over the years.
D the relationship between artistic works and the history of colour.
36 An idea recurring in the text is that people who have studied colour
have
A failed to keep up with scientific developments.
B not understood its global significance.
C found it difficult to be fully objective.
D been muddled about their basic aims.
