Man and Color: The Coloristics of the Cultural Landscape

Abstract

The article presents an overview of modern theories and methodological approaches that expand the usual research practice of studying the colorism of cultural landscapes, offering special tools capable of recording how people actually see color in a cultural landscape, what they feel, how they remember and use it. Cultural landscapes, among which modern man spends most of his life, combine natural and anthropogenic layers, representing a special system of cultural matrices and codes directly linked to a particular territory. Regardless of type, size and structure, each cultural landscape has a characteristic color. The study offers an analysis of a number of ideas important for comprehending (1) the spatial imagery of cultural landscape colorism, (2) the mechanisms of perception and (3) the construction of its constituent colorimages. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the multimodal nature of the color image, its mobility and holism of perception. The methodological significance of geographical determinism theories for understanding the mechanism of colorism formation in the cultural landscape is discussed. The analysis presented in the article allows us to better understand the nature, highlight the key features of cultural landscape colorism and determine its significance for human beings. The shift of emphasis from the study of the relationship between color and objects to the relationship between color and man sets a special vector of research: not “from above”, but “from within”, “at close range”, from the position of an observer immersed in the colorenvironment. Such a change in optics, along with theoretical aspects, is important for applied projection into various target spheres of the cultural landscape. In particular, for the formation of color environment corresponding to the expectations and demands of various social groups of modern society.