Project: Colour Relationships

Research Point: Optical Effects

We are asked to find out how artists in the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist movements exploited the optical effects of colour to create movement and depict the effects of light.  Study their pictures to see how they achieved effects and what their aims were.  Also Op Art and Bridget Riley.

From research and our own experimentation, we have found that using complementary colours next to each other creates the greatest contrast and makes each look the most vivid it can.  However, mixing these colours together quickly neutralises them and creates a range of tertiary colours of browns, greens and greys.  Additionally, placing pure, bright colour surrounded by neutrals (as in the exploring contrasts exercise) makes these brights appear more vivid, especially if the neutral has a hint of the complementary (eg bright yellow against a blueish-gray).

Impressionist Painters

Although there was a very wide range of contrasting styles in Impressionism, I have concentrated on what many would consider the essence of impressionist painting – the application of colour and rendering of light effects.  As there is such a multitude of works to view and research, I have focused on Monet’s work as he has such a wide body of work and did a number of paintings in series to capture the effects of colour and light on a subject.

One reason Impressionist paintings are so colourful is due to technical advances in paint manufacture.  Previously, oil paints had to be created laboriously by hand by mixing pigment and oils and then stored in pigs’ bladders.  The creation of tubes of ready mixed paint allowed artists to be much more portable and to take stable paint out of the studio and to work “plein air” if they wished.  Whilst it is a misconception that all Impressionist painters did this (Manet and Degas were in the main studio painters) others, such as Monet, did create a lot of work outside in all weathers, returning to the studio for reworking and finishing if necessary.  Along with tubes of paint came new synthetic pigments in a range of bright colours such as ultramarine, viridian, vermillion and yellow which allowed for a greater freedom in colour use.

One of the most obvious, noticeable difference between impressionistic paintings and earlier works was the high-key colours used and the sparing use of very dark tones, especially black (although it is not true that they never used black).  As we have all found out by trial and error, just using transparent black or a neutral gray, say, for shadows doesn’t work very well – the colour is flat, non-realistic and can dominate a painting.  In the natural world, there is very little pure black and white, as both can be described as having a complete lack of colour.  In reality, they are almost always tinged with a colour (blue-black or brown-black for instance). 

The Impressionists challenged the traditional view that colours should be dark or light (by the addition of just black, white or grey) and instead concentrated on the relationship between colours, particularly primary and secondary colours.  They found that the effects created by a change in hue produced a much richer and more vibrant image than those created by a change in a tone or shade.  These theories probably had their greatest impact in the portrayal of shadows and their use of complementary colours, e.g. bright yellow sunlight would produce a shadow that was blue or violet in tone, or a red/brown image would create a shadow containing green tones (see Monet’s Grainstack (Sunset) below), although this technique had been used previously (e.g. Delacroix).

What most people think of with regard to Impressionism is the application of paint in small touches and brushstrokes, using unblended colours on a white background (which gave additional luminosity) and allowing it to “mix” on the canvas.  This method of application produced work that, unlike the received art wisdom of the time, did not contain clearly defined lines or forms, but concentrated much more on colour and a sense of a fleeting moment in time captured on a canvas.

One of the best ways to compare colour effects (as with the next exercise we are about to do) is to use the same subject but will different colour combinations/ techniques.  Monet frequently did this, making a number of paintings in series; one of the most famous of which is the series of grainstacks (Grainstack (Sunset), Grainstack (Snow Effect) and Grainstack, Sun in the Mist) which he painted in all different lights and seasons. 

He often worked on more than one canvas a day, sometimes only for a few minutes at a time, when the light was exactly right for the painting he wanted to create.

Looking at Monet’s Bennecourt, from a distance this image of a church and buildings appears to be in fairly neutral shades of stone – browns and greys.  However, by looking at this closely (via the zoom function of Bridgeman Education) you can fully appreciate the wide range of hues the artist has used to create these neutrals.  Just concentrating on the right hand side of the painting: the dark shadows are created in shades of ultramarine; pinks and violets are used for walls and roofs; green is used on the church roof; red and green is used on the wall of the church; yellows are used as a base on the lighter roofs; and, as mentioned above, because it is a sunlit scene, the shadows are created using violet, blues and greens.

I think his work Corner of a Flat atArgenteuil clearly illustrates the broken colour technique and complementary colour theories without either being too garish or obvious.  Again, I zoomed this work on Bridgeman Education to have a good look at the colours and techniques used.  Colour complementaries are used around the outside of the painting (the green plant against the red patterned curtain, the blue pot and blue foliage next to the yellow of the curtain). The centre of the painting is a view into a room with a little boy standing on the floor.  This floor (by its pattern) is obviously a polished wooden parquet.  However, if you look closely at the colour detail of this you will find: the foreground appears neutral brown when you first look at it but comprises thin lines of green, yellow, ochre, blue, white, red, pink and purple.  As the floor recedes away from us into the shadows, the colours change to cooler tones of blue, green, violet and white to reflect the light from the window.  Even though none of these colours really relate to the actual colour of the floor, our brain tells us that this is a dark wooden floor!

Post-Impressionist / Neo-Impressionist (also known as Divisionism and Pointillism)

As with Impressionism, Post-Impressionism is a name created “after the event” as a term to describe the work of diverse artists working in France such as Cezanne, van Gogh, Seurat, Signac and Gauguin which emerged post-1886 (the last Impressionist exhibition).

The Post-Impressionists were not a group or cohesive movement and had varying styles and aims.  They continued to use bright colours and thick brushstrokes, but their work appears more solid than the Impressionists – lines are more defined, colours are applied in larger blocks and more geometrically (not small feathery strokes).  The colours used are more arbitrary; based on emotions and symbolism, rather than the Impressionistic portrayal of reality, nature and a fleeting moment in time.

Georges Seurat

Seurat’s two most famous pieces are Bathers at Asniere and Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.  Bathers, Asniere, is a very large work which I have viewed on a number of occasions at the National Gallery.  Whilst the colours are very similar to those used by the Impressionists, the technique of application is very different.  Based on sketches, this work was completed in a studio using painstaking, methodical short strokes of paint, in a method which Seurat called “chromo-luminarism” but which is better known as Divisionism (of the even more common name of Pointillism).  

These short strokes of paint later developed into even smaller dots of paint, hence the name Pointillism.  Seurat used the complementary colour theories of Chevreul and other later theorists (as had the Impressionists) but tried to impose a more disciplined use of these.  He theorized that applying small dots of complementary colours next to each other would create an optical mix when the viewer was a distance from the canvas, and thus the effect would be brighter and more luminous than colour mixed on the palette and then applied to the canvas.  In some cases this does work, but I think because the colour patches are very small, they all seem to blur into one which has the opposite effect – no colour is big enough to stand out, and the mix of a number of colours only serves to neutralise them all.  The other problem with Pointillism is that you lose many of the expressive qualities of paint applied with a brush or other implement – there is no distinction across the painting and so not really any focus or variation.  The paintings appear stilted and stiff, and because there are no distinct edges, it is almost as if there is a film of mist over each one.

Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh was influenced by the Impressionists – he moved away from his dull, dark colours of earlier works towards a much more vivid and intense palette, but took colour a stage further by associating colour with mood and emotions.  His palette lightened noticeably after Van Gogh moved to Paris from the Netherlands.  He was also friends with Signac (another Pointilist painter) and created works in a similar vein, although more usually with strokes of colour rather than dabs.  A great influence on Van Gogh was the art of Japan.  He collected Japanese prints and created his own versions in oil paint – using the strong solid colour, oriental flattened perspectives and the outlining of objects – the themes of which continued to play an ongoing part in his work.   http://www.vangoghgallery.com/catalog/Painting/247/Japonaiserie:-Flowering-Plum-Tree-(after-Hiroshige).html

Van Gogh continued to use strong complementary colour in his work, sometimes in quite violent combinations.  The Sower Arles 1888 uses bands of yellow, blue, ochre and purple, while The Night Café, also 1888 combines red walls with a green ceiling and a very bright yellow floor streaked with green. 

Van Gogh’s use of colour and his emotional input into the creative process has been preserved through his many letters to his brother and other artists, and it is through these we see how he felt an emotional attachment to the colour he used.  In a letter written referring to his painting “The Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital” while he was at patient there he states “You will realise that this use of red ochre, green, darkened by grey, the black strokes that define the contours, all this tends to convey a sense of angst, of a kind many of my companions in wretchedness often suffer.  And the motif of the big tree struck by lightening, and the sickly pink and green smile of the last flower of the autumn serves to heighten this impression.”  http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/vgm/index.jsp?lang=en&page=4060

Van Gogh’s colours were enhanced by his very visible and expressive brush strokes which developed after he experimented with pointillist techniques, soon moving to shorter strokes and then longer, swirling marks.  As he painted very quickly, many of his oils were very much wet-in-wet which gives very his paintings their characteristic texture – you have to use a lot of paint to cover wet oil and each brush stroke would score into the previous layer, adding more texture to the surface.   In “The Starry Night” (a painting from his imagination) you can clearly see each stroke of the brush – from the majestic swirling sky to the more directional lines for the buildings and shrubs.  Traditional landscapes were calm and still – this is anything but.  The length of each stroke, its direction and the curving, while very gestural, must have been thought through in advance to give the painting its sense of majesty – the sky here is the focus: the high viewpoint, the smallness of the village and the towering Cyrpress puncturing the sky all point to the depth of colour and strong contrast of the blue and yellow of the sky.

Op-Art

Op-Art (a contraction of optical art) originally came from the Bauhaus period and “stressed the relationship of form and function within a framework of analysis and rationality. Students were taught to focus on the overall design, or entire composition, in order to present unified works” (Wikipedia).  Op Art really came into its own in the 1960s, first with black and white paintings in geometric forms and/or lines, and then later in the 1960s colour theory and contrasts began to be used by artists such as Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely.  The stark images created in black and white are very dynamic and create a volatile relationship which, after a while, make your eyes hurt by looking at the strong contrasts.

By introducing colour, artists used the same premise, but enhanced their paintings using strong contrasts which have a different effect on the eye and create a more three-dimensional image.  The effect of equiluminance is used which can make an image seem to vibrate by using two contrasting colours which are the same tone.

In “2170 VP-106, 1969”, Victor Vasarely uses sphere shape to distort the basic grid pattern of the background.  By using just two colours here, and lightening the tone of the blue towards the centre of the sphere, it appears to be as if a huge bubble is trying to burst from the canvas, and the centre of the bubble appears to be moving towards you.

In “Untitled”, he again uses sphere pushing out of the canvas, but this time in complementary red and green, using the tonal range of the colour and the size of the square grid to create a very three-dimensional effect.  There are no dimensions to this piece on Bridgeman Education but I imagine that, if it was big enough and you stood in the front of the canvas with your eyeline at the centre it would feel as if you were falling forwards!