21 books like Theory of Colours

By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Charles Lock Eastlake (translator),

Here are 21 books that Theory of Colours fans have personally recommended if you like Theory of Colours. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Republic of Plato

Carolyn L. Kane Author Of Electrographic Architecture: New York Color, Las Vegas Light, and America's White Imaginary

From my list on how and why things are chosen as beautiful.

Why am I passionate about this?

Understanding the world is important for everyone. For me, it takes the form of analyzing colorful images and artifacts in the built environment. In the broad traditions of the global northwest, color is regarded as deceptive and unreliable. For centuries now, and throughout disparate media and technical systems, color has had to maintain this secondary, subordinate status as “other,” linked to falsity, manipulation, and deceit or, to quote David Batchelor, “some ‘foreign’ body". In my work, I argue that we have all inherited this tradition in the global northwest, fetishizing color as both excessive and yet indispensable in its capacity to retroactively confirm the sanctity of what it is not.

Carolyn's book list on how and why things are chosen as beautiful

Carolyn L. Kane Why did Carolyn love this book?

Once again, some of our most profound insights into contemporary culture derive from a deep understanding of history. For example, why is there a fundamental distrust of surfaces and shiny “bling”?

In The Republic, and in “Book X” in particular, Plato outlines a theory of images, truth, deception, and appearances that we continue to relive in everyday life.

By Allan Bloom (translator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Republic of Plato as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Long regarded as the most accurate rendering of Plato's Republic that has yet been published, this widely acclaimed work is the first strictly literal translation of a timeless classic. In addition to the annotated text, there is also a rich and valuable essay,as well as indices,which will better enable the reader to approach the heart of Plato's intention. This new edition includes a new introduction by acclaimed critic Adam Kirsch, setting the work in its intellectual context for a new generation of readers.


Book cover of Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

Carolyn L. Kane Author Of Electrographic Architecture: New York Color, Las Vegas Light, and America's White Imaginary

From my list on how and why things are chosen as beautiful.

Why am I passionate about this?

Understanding the world is important for everyone. For me, it takes the form of analyzing colorful images and artifacts in the built environment. In the broad traditions of the global northwest, color is regarded as deceptive and unreliable. For centuries now, and throughout disparate media and technical systems, color has had to maintain this secondary, subordinate status as “other,” linked to falsity, manipulation, and deceit or, to quote David Batchelor, “some ‘foreign’ body". In my work, I argue that we have all inherited this tradition in the global northwest, fetishizing color as both excessive and yet indispensable in its capacity to retroactively confirm the sanctity of what it is not.

Carolyn's book list on how and why things are chosen as beautiful

Carolyn L. Kane Why did Carolyn love this book?

Fredric Jameson’s Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism was one of the first accounts of “postmodern aesthetics” and why it continues to matter today.

Circa 1990, Jameson showed how a new age of high-tech and transnational corporations fundamentally transformed how we create and experience art, design, and aesthetics.

By Fredric Jameson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now in paperback, Fredric Jameson's most wide-ranging work seeks to crystalize a definition of "postmodernism". Jameson's inquiry looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from "high" art to "low" from market ideology to architecture, from painting to "punk" film, from video art to literature.


Book cover of The Question Concerning Technology: And Other Essays

Carolyn L. Kane Author Of Electrographic Architecture: New York Color, Las Vegas Light, and America's White Imaginary

From my list on how and why things are chosen as beautiful.

Why am I passionate about this?

Understanding the world is important for everyone. For me, it takes the form of analyzing colorful images and artifacts in the built environment. In the broad traditions of the global northwest, color is regarded as deceptive and unreliable. For centuries now, and throughout disparate media and technical systems, color has had to maintain this secondary, subordinate status as “other,” linked to falsity, manipulation, and deceit or, to quote David Batchelor, “some ‘foreign’ body". In my work, I argue that we have all inherited this tradition in the global northwest, fetishizing color as both excessive and yet indispensable in its capacity to retroactively confirm the sanctity of what it is not.

Carolyn's book list on how and why things are chosen as beautiful

Carolyn L. Kane Why did Carolyn love this book?

Yes, this is an essay, not a book. But it is such a good essay that the entire book has been re-printed with its title!

The essay is an excellent exegesis on understanding why “technology is not really about technology.” For Heidegger, the question concerning technology is a question about “being in the world”: our orientation, proclivities, values, and habits.

By Martin Heidegger,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Question Concerning Technology as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

As relevant now as ever before, this accessible collection is an essential landmark in the philosophy of science from "one of the most profound thinkers of the twentieth century" (New York Times).

The advent of machine technology has given rise to some of the deepest problems of modern thought. Featuring the celebrated essay "The Question Concerning Technology," this prescient volume contains Martin Heidegger's groundbreaking investigation into the pervasive "enframing" character of our understanding of ourselves and the world.



Book cover of The Critique of Judgement

Carolyn L. Kane Author Of Electrographic Architecture: New York Color, Las Vegas Light, and America's White Imaginary

From my list on how and why things are chosen as beautiful.

Why am I passionate about this?

Understanding the world is important for everyone. For me, it takes the form of analyzing colorful images and artifacts in the built environment. In the broad traditions of the global northwest, color is regarded as deceptive and unreliable. For centuries now, and throughout disparate media and technical systems, color has had to maintain this secondary, subordinate status as “other,” linked to falsity, manipulation, and deceit or, to quote David Batchelor, “some ‘foreign’ body". In my work, I argue that we have all inherited this tradition in the global northwest, fetishizing color as both excessive and yet indispensable in its capacity to retroactively confirm the sanctity of what it is not.

Carolyn's book list on how and why things are chosen as beautiful

Carolyn L. Kane Why did Carolyn love this book?

Also one of the most comprehensive philosophical accounts of aesthetic judgment and why taste is taste and not something else…Even though it was penned circa 1790, it still has many gems of insight for the present, especially when it comes to our biases and prejudices regarding color, charm, and sense perception.

For example, Kant writes of color: “The colours which give brilliancy to the sketch are part of the charm. They may no doubt, in their own way, enliven the object for sensation, but make it really worth looking at and beautiful they cannot.” (¶14; p. 56)

By Immanuel Kant, James Creed Meredith (translator), Nicholas Walker (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Critique of Judgement as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'beauty has purport and significance only for human beings, for beings at once animal and rational'

In the Critique of Judgement (1790) Kant offers a penetrating analysis of our experience of the beautiful and the sublime, discussing the objectivity of taste, aesthetic disinterestedness, the relation of art and nature, the role of imagination, genius and originality, the limits of representation and the connection between morality and the aesthetic. He also investigates the validity of our judgements concerning the apparent purposiveness of nature with respect to the highest
interests of reason and enlightenment.

The work profoundly influenced the artists and writers…


Book cover of Made to Create with All My Heart and Soul: 60 Worship-Through-Art Devotions for Girls

Janae Dueck Author Of Coloring God's Love for Me: 100 Devotions to Inspire Young Hearts

From my list on coloring books from a faith-based art therapist.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love suggesting these topics of coloring books because my clinical work involves using art, coloring, and creativity in a therapeutic setting. I am an art therapist working with children in a hospital setting and am trained in applying the arts to build coping skills for managing difficult emotions. As a Christian author, I like to integrate both scripture and art to allow big concepts to become more comprehendible for the younger reader. Growing up, I've always been a visual learner! Art accesses parts of the brain that reading cannot. So, I hope these recommendations and my book can be just the start of discovering the benefits of art. 

Janae's book list on coloring books from a faith-based art therapist

Janae Dueck Why did Janae love this book?

This book is so fun! It invites the reader to create art in response to a truth about who you are! The activity book engages its reader in creativity and artistic expression after reading a devotion and scripture verse. Personally, I adore any book where its sole purpose is to remind the reader who God created them to be! It is an empowering read and is really hands-on. I would recommend this book for any girl who is creative at heart, and wants to grow their faith with Jesus! It's another great resource to have on you so that your child can do the activities with a group of their closest girlfriends. 

By Lauren Duncan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Made to Create with All My Heart and Soul as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

ECPA 2020 Christian Book Award Finalist!

For girls who like to draw, sketch, imagine, explore, paint, smudge, color, write, and bring ideas to life!
You are a wonderful work of art, a unique creation put together by a loving God who has big plans in mind for you!

Paint, doodle, and craft your way to a better understanding of who God created you to be! You’ll learn art concepts and do fun projects with Lauren, an art teacher who wants to show you how to use your God-given talents to worship Him! Each day, you’ll read a Bible verse and…


Book cover of The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression

David Chelsea Author Of Perspective! for Comic Book Artists

From my list on making you a better artist.

Why am I passionate about this?

Although I have been a professional artist for over forty years, I have never yet gotten to the point where I imagine I have it all figured out. There are always new techniques to learn, and new mediums to explore. The books on this list are ones I have found helpful in nudging me in new and productive directions. 

David's book list on making you a better artist

David Chelsea Why did David love this book?

Gary Faigin is the guy I took my first and only perspective class from, back when he was teaching at the New York Academy of Arts. Eventually we became friends, and fortunately for me he never wrote a book on perspective. Instead, Gary channeled his considerable knowledge of anatomy and drawing into the indispensable book on facial expressions. In profusely illustrated chapters, Gary breaks down the daunting complexity of facial expressions into six basics: joy, anger, sadness, disgust, fear, and surprise. Like the primary colors, this basic palette yields the full spectrum of extreme to subtle, in-between, and mixed expressions. 

By Gary Faigin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Artist's Complete Guide to Facial Expression as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Artists will love this book, the definitive guide to capturing facial expressions. In a carefully organised, easy-to-use format, author Gary Faigin shows readers the expressions created by individual facial muscles, then draws them together in a section devoted to the six basic human emotions: sadness, anger, joy, fear, disgust and surprise. Each emotion is shown in steadily increasing intensity and Faigin's detailed renderings are supplemented by clear explanatory text, additional sketches and finished work. An appendix includes yawning, wincing and other physical reactions. Want to create portraits that capture the real person? Want to draw convincing illustrations? Want to show…


Book cover of 365 Days of Drawing: Sketch and Paint Your Way Through the Creative Year

Grace Sandford Author Of Cute-O-Rama: You Can Doodle Anything!: How to Draw More Than 125 Super-Cute, Super-Easy Things

From my list on books for doodlers, scribblers and those who never stopped drawing.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a children’s book illustrator who has been passionate about illustration and art from a young age, and I am fortunate to have illustrated over 30 books for publishers worldwide. I have always believed drawing is for everyone and that you should not stop after childhood. Drawing can improve your mental health, enhance your way of visually communicating ideas, or just be a new way to have fun. I hope that my book and the books I have recommended inspire at least one person to pick up a pencil and have a go!

Grace's book list on books for doodlers, scribblers and those who never stopped drawing

Grace Sandford Why did Grace love this book?

365 Days of Drawing is such a positive and personal book. It feels like an art diary that I can take in my bag for whenever I get a quiet moment between hectic moments of life. You can look back on your year through the prompts and see how much you have improved, whilst taking some time to practice your craft and to do something that you enjoy.

It is perfect for those who want to draw more but don’t know where to begin.   

By Lorna Scobie,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked 365 Days of Drawing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Get lost in your creativity with 365 Days of Drawing, a thoughtful and inspiring art journal designed to help you carve out moments of self-expression.

Lorna shows you that drawing does not have to be scary - it can be done with any materials, in any colour, in any style and can be done anywhere.

Each activity has been given a loose category: imagination, tutorial, relaxation, colour theory, and observational, so that you can practice a broad range of drawing skills. Each 'theme' is designed to expand your creative skills and spark the artist within.

With helpful prompts and pages…


Book cover of The Phenomenal Basis of Intentionality

Neil Mehta Author Of A Pluralist Theory of Perception

From my list on the conscious mind.

Why am I passionate about this?

Somehow, electrical impulses shoot through our brains to generate a surround sound, 3D-movie experience of the world. How on earth is this possible? When I was a college student, this question burrowed into my brain and wouldn’t get out. So I decided to make a living thinking about it. Now it’s 20 years later, I’m a philosophy professor at Yale-NUS College, and I still don’t know the answer!

Neil's book list on the conscious mind

Neil Mehta Why did Neil love this book?

What if consciousness helps bestow meanings on our concepts and words? According to Angela Mendelovici, the word "tomato" ultimately gets its meaning from your conscious experiences of tomatoes—experiences of red, round things.

More generally, consciousness provides some very simple, concrete building blocks that we can use to assemble some very complex, abstract meanings. I found it fascinating how much Mendelovici was able to push these ideas.

By Angela Mendelovici,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Phenomenal Basis of Intentionality as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Intentionality is the mind's ability to be "of," "about," or "directed" at things, or to "say" something. For example, a thought might "say" that grass is green or that Santa Claus is jolly, and a visual experience might be "of" a blue cup. While the existence of the phenomenon of intentionality is manifestly obvious, how exactly the mind gets to be "directed" at things, which may not even exist, is deeply mysterious and controversial.

It has been long assumed that the best way to explain intentionality is in terms of tracking relations, information, functional roles, and similar notions. This book…


Book cover of Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence

Yael Lin Author Of The Intersubjectivity of Time: Levinas and Infinite Responsibility

From my list on time and its impact on human existence.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have time, save time, spend time, waste time, write, and teach time. I am fascinated with the question of time both as a cosmological phenomenon and as an aspect that is inseparable from our existence. I channeled this fascination into a PhD dissertation, books, and articles examining the relationship between time and human existence. But like Saint Augustine, I am still baffled by the question of time and like him: "If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it …, I do not know."

Yael's book list on time and its impact on human existence

Yael Lin Why did Yael love this book?

The notion of time appears in many of Levinas's articles and books, but Otherwise than Being offers the most profound view. I was troubled by Bergson's and Heidegger's focus on the time of the individual, and their reduction of collective time to a vulgar, inauthentic, unreal experience. I found an answer to this discomfort in Levinas's view of time as inter-subjective. For him, time is not exterior to the subject (like the traditional view of time) nor tied with the individual, but rather is an experience in-between myself and the Other. Time is created when I am interrupted by the Other. This approach is challenging in the context of Levinas's ethical views as well as raises various questions regarding the relation between Levinas's view and our intuitive understanding of time.

By Emmanuel Levinas,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

I. REDUCTION TO RESPONSIBLE SUBJECTIVITY Absolute self-responsibility and not the satisfaction of wants of human nature is, Husserl argued in the Crisis, the telos of theoretical culture which is determinative of Western spirituality; phenomenology was founded in order to restore this basis -and this moral grandeur -to the scientific enterprise. The recovery of the meaning of Being -and even the possibility of raising again the question of its meaning -requires, according to Heidegger, authenticity, which is defined by answerability; it is not first an intellectual but an existential resolution, that of setting out to answer for for one's one's very…


Book cover of Phenomenology of Perception

Charles P. Webel Author Of The World as Idea: A Conceptual History

From my list on how the world may or may not be what you think it is.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a lifelong student with what I sometimes call “a multidisciplinary disorder,” I have been intrigued both about “the outer world,” or the “external environment of life on planet Earth, and “the mind that knows the world.” Hence, as a teenager in New York City, I read voraciously books in philosophy, history, and the social and natural sciences to learn what “great minds” have thought about “the world.” Much later, as an “academic” researcher and writer, I scoured the shelves of university libraries to examine what I considered the strengths and weaknesses of the academic disciplines that addressed our “knowledge of the world,” and their applications for “changing the world for the better.” My book The World as Idea is the first volume of a projected trilogy modestly entitled The Fate of This World and The Future of Humanity. I’m now working on the second volume, The Reality of This World.

Charles' book list on how the world may or may not be what you think it is

Charles P. Webel Why did Charles love this book?

Merleau-Ponty is one of the 20th century’s most important, and frequently overlooked, thinkers.

His work The Phenomenology of Perception has had the single greatest impact on my own thinking about how we perceive both “the world” of our senses and body, and the incarnate subject—the “I”—who is in the world. It is one of the great philosophical masterpieces of the past century.

By Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Donald Landes (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Phenomenology of Perception as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

First published in 1945, Maurice Merleau-Ponty's monumental Phenomenologie de la perception signalled the arrival of a major new philosophical and intellectual voice in post-war Europe. Breaking with the prevailing picture of existentialism and phenomenology at the time, it has become one of the landmark works of twentieth-century thought. This new translation, the first for over fifty years, makes this classic work of philosophy available to a new generation of readers.

Phenomenology of Perception stands in the great phenomenological tradition of Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre. Yet Merleau-Ponty's contribution is decisive, as he brings this tradition and other philosophical predecessors, particularly Descartes…


Book cover of The Republic of Plato
Book cover of Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
Book cover of The Question Concerning Technology: And Other Essays

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