Oct 26, 2016 Book of the Week — The Temperamental Rose

A Black, E white, I red, U green, O blue: vowels,
I will someday speak of your unseen births:
A, black corset bristling with glittering flies
That buzz around cruel smells,

Gulfs of shadow; E, innocent vapours and tents,
Lances of proud glaciers, white kings, frissons of an inflorescence;
I, crimsons, spit blood, laughter of lovely lips
In anger or drunken penitence;

U, cycles, divine thrill of a viridian sea,
Peace of pastures sprinkled with animals, peace of wrinkles
Imprinted on broad, thoughtful brows of alchemy;

O, Supreme Clarion full of strange strident cries,
Silence traversed by Worlds and Angels:
—O Omega, violet ray of Her Eyes!

— Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)

The Temperamental Rose: And Other Ways of Seeing Colour
Barbara Hodgson & Claudia Cohen
Vancouver, British Columbia: Heavenly Monkey Editions, 2007
N7433.4 H625 T4 2007

From the Heavenly Monkey website: “A collaboration between author and book designer Barbara Hodgson, and bookbinder Claudia Cohen. The Tempermental Rose & Other Ways Seeing Colour was borne during the collaborators’ first meeting, in the summer of 2006, when they discovered mutual passions for color wheels and other systems for charting and codifying colors. Inspired by centuries of color studies, including those of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and M.-E. Chevreul, the authors reproduce existing color wheels as well as create new and fanciful ways of seeing color. An introductory essay discusses the history of color, and each of the charts is accompanied by explanatory text.”

From the colophon: “This book was designed and set in digital Monotype Fournier by Barbara Hodgson. Francoise Giovannangeli edited it. It was printed letterpress from polymer plates by David Clifford at Black Stone Press, Vancouver, on Arches Cover and BFK Rives. The watercolours used in the charts are from Winsor & Newton, Daler-Rowney, Holbein and Da Vinci.” Edition of thirty numbered and five A.P. copies, each signed by the two authors. Each copy has been bound by Claudia Cohen in her Seattle studio. All hand colouring and other embellishments have been done by the authors. The six vials in each case contain fine artists’ pigments from Kroma, Vancouver.”

Black leather diaper-patterned embossed binding embellished with multi-colored geometric shapes on front and back boards. Spine is red leather with title embossed in gold. Issued in a clam-shell box.

University of Utah copy is no. 5, signed by the authors.

View the original article on the OpenBook Blog