95 Color Culture and Science Journal Vol. 13 (1) 

BOOK REVIEW: Yellow, the history of a 

color  
Renata Pompas  

 
Michel Pastoureau: Giallo, storia di un colore,  

Ponte Alle Grazie, 2019. 

Pastoureau, M. (2019) Yellow: The History of a Color. 

Translated by J. Gladding. Princeton: Princeton 

University Press. 

The publishing house “Ponte alle Grazie”, which for years 

has edited the Italian translation of the  books on color by 

Michel Pastoureau - director in Paris of the “École 

pratique des Hautes études“ and holder of the chair 

“History of symbolism in the West” - has published his 

fifth work on symbolism of colours: “YELLOW. History of 

a color” (€ 32). The book consists of the usual 240 pages 

in the cm. 23 x 23 format and stands out, as always, for 

the exceptional iconographic research. The text is divided 

into three large chronological chapters, subdivided in turn 

by subject, ranging from vocabulary to symbols, everyday 

life, social customs, scientific knowledge, technical 

applications, religious morals and artistic production. In 

the introduction, Pastoureau warns that yellow suffers 

from a limited number of documents on which to conduct 

research, which is why the book also includes gold and 

orange. 

 

Chapter A Beneficial color (From the origins to the 5
th

 

century) 

 

This chapter describes pigments, gold, dyes and the 

myths that described them. 

In The Ochres of the Palaeolithic, he describes the 

procedures for preparing ochres by cave painters 30,000 

years ago.  

Gold occupies two sub-chapters: 

In The Blond Metal he refers to the gold of the 

necropolises, bringing the prehistoric necropolis of Varna 

and the sarcophagus of Pharaoh Tutankhamun as 

examples.  

In The Mythologies of Gold he recalls the Golden Age 

described by Hesiod; the myth of the conquest of 

Hercules' golden apples, that of Jason's Golden Fleece, 

that of King Midas who "represents the most ancient link 

between yellow, envy and avarice" and the legend of The 

Rhine Gold. 

In The Sun Cults, he points out that the sun has always 

been associated with gold and, in its place, with yellow. 

Turning to dyes, Pastoureau divides them into: 

Dyeing yellow, in which he lists vegetable dyes, from 

saffron to reseda (which it is always translated as 

"guada") to safflower. 

Wearing yellow in which he shows how until the late 

Middle Ages yellow in clothing was still appreciated. 

The case of Clodius in which Cicero's mockery of Clodius 

is reported, describes him as a debauchee who wears 

yellow clothes, a purely feminine color. 

The following conclude the chapter: 

Lexicon teachings analyses Latin terms. 

The silence of the Bible and of the Fathers of the Church 

where an abundance of gold does not correspond to a 

presence of yellow. 

 

 
 

Chapter An equivocal color (6th-15th centuries) 

 

From this century on yellow turns towards negative 

judgements. 

The absence of yellow in Christian worship is linked to 

the previous sub-chapter by examining the liturgical code 

of colours established by Pope Innocent III. 

In Yellow in the Coat of Arms Pastoureau, who is an 

expert in this field, examines heraldry. 



96 Color Culture and Science Journal Vol. 13 (1) 

In An Ambivalent Symbology, he makes the transition 

from the coat of arms to the robes of knights. 

In The Prestige of Blond Hair, he describes how much 

they were appreciated in medieval courts. 

In Bile and Urine he describes the medical practices of 

fluid analysis that charged yellow with filth and disease. 

Envy, lies and betrayal develops the latter aspect, which 

by the end of the Middle Ages became the color of 

forgers , traitors and criminals. 

The robes of Jan Hus and Judas shows how the yellow 

robe characterised traitors and became the symbol of 

Jewishness.  

To the origins of the yellow star? Develops the theme of 

yellow in the representation of Judaism, while 

emphasising that there was no system of signs or colours 

common to the whole of Christianity. 

 

Chapter A little-loved color (16th-21st century) 

 

The chapter begins by noting how yellow is still a colour 

with a limited presence in Europe today and suggests 

that its decline stems from its instability in painting and 

dyeing. 

Painters' Yellow is a section entirely dedicated to 

paintings and their reproduction.   

Yellow of the scholars shows its diversified classification 

over the centuries. 

Yellow in Everyday Life looks at the presence of yellow in 

painting, clothing and fabric samples. 

Dictionaries and encyclopedias takes up the lexicological 

investigation of yellow from the first chapter, extending it 

to the 17th and 18th centuries in France. 

Eastern trends attests to how the success of 'chinoiserie' 

in Europe briefly contributed to the fashion for yellow. 

Discretion, transgression, modernity attests to how in the 

19th century yellow denoted a series of negativities: from 

prostitutes to asylums known as 'the yellow houses' and 

more. 

At the far reaches of yellow is Orange introduces this 

shade Pastoureau writes that it "began to distinguish 

itself from red at the end of the Middle Ages" and spread 

from the 14th century with the importation of new dyes: 

the "Campeche wood" from Central America (which in 

Italy we call “campeggio wood") and the pernambuco 

wood from South America (which in Italy we call "Brazil 

wood"). It concludes with the strong presence in 

contemporary signage. 

Yellow in our time concludes the book, with the criticality 

that, for different reasons, yellow suffers in our society, 

where it is recovered for its visibility, for example in taxis, 

in post boxes, in the waistcoats of the eponymous 

political movement. 

 

A book in which, alongside the historical seriousness of 

the text, the pleasure of the images predominates.