OVER THE RAINBOW

A broad-spectrum overview of rainbow physics, lore, and symbology.

Davis splits up her topic into five distinct sections. First, she explains how rainbows are created by light bouncing around inside raindrops or prisms, why the order of colors is always the same, with red on top (unless the prism is positioned pointy side down…an exception she doesn’t unpack in the text but that Tang illustrates), how thinkers from Aristotle to Sir Isaac Newton refined our understanding of the physics involved, and how certain conditions can generate fogbows and other “almost rainbows.” She then moves on to examples of rainbows in Chinese, Japanese, Aboriginal Australian, Norse, and ancient Greek mythology and looks at rainbows in art from Elizabethan times to the “Rainbow Village” painted in protest in Taiwan in 2008 by folk artist Huang Yung-fu and, along with nods to rainbows as good (to Noah, for instance) or bad (in “Amazonian culture”) omens and to Greenpeace’s ship Rainbow Warrior, which was blown up by French intelligence services, closes with a full spread on the history of the rainbow flag as a symbol of the LGBTQ+ rights movement. The illustrations offer schematic views of refracting light rays and of rainbows lighting up ancient and modern skies above a culturally and racially diverse array of observers, historical figures, and, at the end, couples.

Light, bright, and commendable for its inclusive, worldwide perspective.