Color is a recurring subject in VSG — in practice, in conversation, and in the questions members keep returning to. Not color theory as a system to master, but color as something that resists mastery: culturally loaded, historically shifting, materially unpredictable. This page collects the threads — conversations, books, resources — that have come up across VSG sessions.
Conversations
A VSG session with Yann Courte and Kai Rennes — on color in painting and photography, the tension between control and accident, and what it means to commit to a visual language over years.
Books
Michel Pastoureau — A Cultural History of Color series
Each volume by the French medieval historian Michel Pastoureau traces a single color across Western history — art, heraldry, religion, fashion, language, and science. Not a color theory textbook, but a cultural archaeology: how colors acquired their meanings, lost them, and acquired new ones. Recommended for anyone interested in why colors mean what they mean. Blue is usually the entry point.
- Blue: The History of a Color — where Western color culture begins, and why blue was invisible for so long
- Red: The History of a Color — the oldest color in human culture, and the most socially charged
- Green: The History of a Color — unstable, ambivalent, the color of the marginal
- Yellow: The History of a Color — from gold to betrayal, the most ambiguous in the series
- Black: The History of a Color — on the color that absorbs all others, and what that meant
- White: The History of a Color — purity, mourning, emptiness — the color that means everything and nothing
- Pink: The History of a Color — a recent addition to the series, on the youngest color in Western culture
The Gray Book by Aris Fioretos — not a color history, but a philosophical essay written in the mode of gray itself: the color of vagueness, suspension, and literary language. A companion to Pastoureau rather than a continuation.
Interaction of Color by Josef Albers — the classic 1963 text on color perception, first published at Yale. Not theory to read but experiments to do: the same color appears different depending on what surrounds it, and Albers builds the whole book from that single unsettling fact. One of the foundational books for anyone working with color. This 50th anniversary edition expands the original color studies.
Dictionary of Color Combinations and Vol. 2 by Sanzo Wada — 348 and 237 color combinations drawn from early twentieth-century Japanese art, fashion, kimono, and graphic design. A working reference, not a history. Came up in the VSG color session alongside Kai Rennes's work and the Chromosphere podcast.
RGB Colorspace Atlas by Tauba Auerbach — three cube-shaped books mapping the entire RGB color space as a continuous printed gradient. Every digital color combination possible, made physical. One of the most extraordinary artist's books made around the subject of color.
Resources
Chromosphere
A podcast on color in art and design. Came up in the VSG color session as a practical listening companion — accessible without being shallow. Available wherever you listen to podcasts.
Sanzo Wada — Dictionary of Color Combinations (video overviews)
Volume 1
Volume 2
An interactive version of the Wada combinations is available at sanzo-wada.dmbk.io — useful for exploring before buying, or for working with the combinations directly on screen.
Upload any image and extract its color palette. Useful for identifying exact colors in a photograph, a painting, or a reference image — and for building palettes from work you already have.
A large collection of curated color palettes, browsable by theme. The sea collection is a good starting point — four-color combinations drawn from coastal, oceanic, and water-adjacent tones.
A painting technique executed entirely in shades of grey or another neutral tone — used both as an autonomous aesthetic choice and as underpainting before colour glazing. Grisaille trains the eye to read value and form independently of hue, making it a useful practice for anyone working with colour who wants to understand what colour is actually doing in an image.
VSG will return to color as a dedicated session theme. Members interested in contributing references or organizing around this topic, get in touch.