Colour of Angels

Constance Classen is a cultural historian whose previous publications include Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and Across Cultures and Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell (with David Howes and Anthony Synnott).

'With the blend of erudition and elegance we have now come to expect, Constance Classen's The Colour of Angels does much to restore the history of the senses to its proper importance.' - Roy Porter, Wellcome Institute'It is a solid and imaginative contribution to both the history of the senses as well as to feminist scholarship from the middle ages up to the rise of modernism.' - Henry Luce, The University of Chicago

• Introduction PART I Cosmology 1 On the color of angels: the sensory cosmologies of St. Hildegard, Boehme, and Fourier 2 The breath of God: sacred histories of scent PART II Gender 3 The scented womb and the seminal eye: embodying gender codes through the senses 4 Pens and needles: writing, women’s work, and feminine sensibilities PART III Aesthetics 5 Symbolist harmonies, Futurist colors, Surrealist recipes: crossing sensory borders in the arts 6 A feel for the world: lessons in aesthetics from the blind