Toward a Chromatic Hermeneutics. Color Practices in Architectural Reconstructions between Digital and Virtual Heritage

Only recently color has become part of the process of mechanical reproduction of perceived reality, and with some difficulties. Before it, the presence of a manual artwork able to “invite” the brain to replicate the perceptive process with which it routinely probes and appreciates the natural environment was as necessary as the presence of someone who could play an instrument to listen to music. The birth and development of technology for a mechanical reproduction of color almost filled the distance between a photographic image and the visible reality, certainly contributing to an objective documentation of places and facts. Paradoxically, this higher objectivity and accuracy has driven photography away from its natural mission of “representing” reality, showing things for what they are.