Pastoureau and Vigarello turn to painting as historical evidence
The historians of color and of the body both publish new studies with Seuil this month, treating paintings as sources for understanding how societies saw themselves.
Michel Pastoureau has just published "La couleur dans la peinture" with Seuil, which will follow on 23 October with Georges Vigarello's "Le corps en mouvement dans la peinture." The two historians appeared together on Sunday 11 October in a roundtable at the Rendez-vous de l'histoire in Blois, and gave Livres Hebdo a joint interview in which they discussed at length what links their two books: painting itself.
Pastoureau is known for his decades of work on the history of colors, symbols and heraldry. Vigarello has built his career studying the history of the body, hygiene and physical appearance. According to Livres Hebdo, both now turn to painting as a kind of mirror in which the habits, norms and preoccupations of past societies can be read.
Beyond that shared method, the source material gives no further detail on the content or arguments of either book.
Sources
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