ABSTRACT
Color is not only a physical and perceptive phenomenon; it is also a complex cultural construct which resists any attempt at generalization. This chapter examines the difficulties involved in considering color as a fully fledged object of historical interest: (1) documentary difficulties linked to the wide variety of color supports and the different ways each of them has been conserved; (2) methodological difficulties to understand the status and function of color on an object or a work of art; and (3) epistemological difficulties related to the perception of colors in previous centuries (the spectral order of colors were virtually unknown before the 17th century, etc.). Colors cannot be studied outside of their cultural context, outside time or space. Any history of colors must first be a social history. It is society which “makes” color, which gives it its definitions and its meaning, which constructs its codes and its values, which organizes its practices and determines its importance. If we neglect this, any attempt to build up a history of colors would prove vain.
