Light and colour in Byzantine art

by Liz James

This is the first book to investigate the issue of light and colour in Byzantine art. Liz James argues that in neglecting colour, we have not fully understood Byzantine art. She contrasts modern perceptions of colour with ancient Greek and Byzantine ones in order to demonstrate that while we associate colour with hue, the Byzantines emphasised the relative lightness or darkness of a colour. This emphasis affected both the Byzantines' use of a colour within a work of art, and their conceptual view of a colour. In examining the physical evidence, combined with Byzantine colour vocabulary and Byzantine descriptions of colours, Liz James opens up the issue beyond the purely art historical into a study of art in its historical and perceptual context.