The Rainbow Book is a reprint of a cult book of post-1968 psychedelic culture, first published in 1975 in Berkeley, California, on the occasion of The Rainbow Show exhibition held at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
The book is a collection of essays and illustrations devoted to the rainbow and colour spectra, analysing the significance of colour (both physical and metaphysical) from antiquity to modern times. Printed on sheets of different hues, according to the rainbow spectrum, it functions as an encyclopaedia of the cultural and artistic manifestations of the rainbow, in myth, magic and paintings as well as in prints and poems. It includes poems by Virgil, Dante, Blake, Keats, Wordsworth and others, plus paintings by Giotto, Bosch, Van der Weyden, Dürer, Rubens, Blake, Turner, Constable and the sacred art of Tibet.
Nero Editions, 228pp, 19cm x 32cm, paperback, English language