Chroma
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Description
In Chroma, his most poetic and lyrical book, Derek Jarman explores the uses of colour. Shifting across the spectrum and from the medieval to the modern, he draws on the work of great colour theorists from Pliny to Leonardo. Interwoven with these musings are evocative memories from Jarman's childhood and illustrious career, along with reflections on his deteriorating health.
Written a year before Jarman's death, and as his eyesight was failing, this is an intensely personal work; a paean from an artist seeking to memorialise the extraordinary power of colour even while it receded from his own life.
Book Information
Posts
It is very complicated to review this. It's also been complicated to think about this. I've done a lot of feeling about this, though. Derek Jarman, trained painter, also filmmaker and poet among other things, is losing his eyesight to an infection with cytomegalovirus when writing this, contracted while being HIV positive. A man that has dedicated his life to the visual arts experiences his field of vision narrowing and fading. And this book is as much a grieving of this process as it is a celebration of colour and it is truly emotional. If you do not vibe with stream of consciousness, this won't be enjoyable for you, I'm afraid, but if you do, Jarman invites you along on his pondering on many a colour. The foreword to this edition by Ali Smith is also wonderful. I don't know how wildly accessible the canon of rich intertextuality is, but I connected with it very well. Of course there were chapters I preferred over others, but "Into the Blue" I will hold very close to me, "Black Arts" I enjoyed very much and "The Perils of Yellow" really got under my skin. Being Disabled with an illness that, if treatment ever went to shit, could take my eyesight as well, this was simply a profound, intimate reading experience. 4, tendency 4.5, so let's make it a 4.25, shall we? :D CW: HIV/AIDS, loss of eyesight, mental health struggles, use of the n-word ("How Now Brown Cow" is the chapter that mentions race the most and while not malicious, there sure is potential for discomfort in that one)
Description
In Chroma, his most poetic and lyrical book, Derek Jarman explores the uses of colour. Shifting across the spectrum and from the medieval to the modern, he draws on the work of great colour theorists from Pliny to Leonardo. Interwoven with these musings are evocative memories from Jarman's childhood and illustrious career, along with reflections on his deteriorating health.
Written a year before Jarman's death, and as his eyesight was failing, this is an intensely personal work; a paean from an artist seeking to memorialise the extraordinary power of colour even while it receded from his own life.
Book Information
Posts
It is very complicated to review this. It's also been complicated to think about this. I've done a lot of feeling about this, though. Derek Jarman, trained painter, also filmmaker and poet among other things, is losing his eyesight to an infection with cytomegalovirus when writing this, contracted while being HIV positive. A man that has dedicated his life to the visual arts experiences his field of vision narrowing and fading. And this book is as much a grieving of this process as it is a celebration of colour and it is truly emotional. If you do not vibe with stream of consciousness, this won't be enjoyable for you, I'm afraid, but if you do, Jarman invites you along on his pondering on many a colour. The foreword to this edition by Ali Smith is also wonderful. I don't know how wildly accessible the canon of rich intertextuality is, but I connected with it very well. Of course there were chapters I preferred over others, but "Into the Blue" I will hold very close to me, "Black Arts" I enjoyed very much and "The Perils of Yellow" really got under my skin. Being Disabled with an illness that, if treatment ever went to shit, could take my eyesight as well, this was simply a profound, intimate reading experience. 4, tendency 4.5, so let's make it a 4.25, shall we? :D CW: HIV/AIDS, loss of eyesight, mental health struggles, use of the n-word ("How Now Brown Cow" is the chapter that mentions race the most and while not malicious, there sure is potential for discomfort in that one)