Looking forward to this part of the course – I really like colour (especially bright colours!) and find colour much more interesting than pattern or mark making.
Research Point – Colour Theories of Chevreul and how particular artists have used Chevreul’s theories.
There is so much research on colour theory – plenty of it way above my head at present! – but I found a couple of interesting papers on the internet on the subject:
and
Michel-Eugene Chevreul was a French chemist and academic who was appointed a director at the Gobelins Manufactury in Paris (a national textiles factory) in 1824 to develop their dyes. One major complaint was the quality of the black samples: after comparing these with other samples dyed by different manufacturers, he realised that the problem was not with the black dye itself, but was created when the black was placed next to other colours.
Through experimentation and observation, Chevreul published his research in a book entitled "The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colours and their Application to the Arts" (first published in 1839 and translated into English in 1854). This stated that in the case where the eye sees at the same time two contiguous colours, they will appear as dissimilar as possible, both in their optical composition and in the strength of their colour.
A similar process also occurs when comparing lightness - if two colours of grey (light and dark) are placed next to each other, the light grey will appear lighter and the dark grey darker. The eye automatically enhances the difference between the two to give the greatest possible contrast.
Colour theory was not new (Leonard da Vinci wrote that what we now call complementary colours placed next to each other heighted the colour) and Newton used refracted light to create a rainbow of colours. However, Chevreul's research took this further and he differentiated between colour contrasts:
- simultaneous contrast (two colours viewed next to each other)
- successive contrast (or negative after-image) and
- mixed contrast (two colours viewed after one another) - this was noted by Chevruel when buyers examined many colours of fabric.
He went on to suggest that colour contrasts could be accurately predicted and stated that if two colours are seen close together, either will shift in hue as if the visual complementary colour of the neighbouring colour was mixed with it (i.e if a dark red and light yellow are seen side by side, the red will shift as if mixed with the complement of the light yellow (dark blue violet) and the yellow will shift as if mixed with the complement of the dark red (light green blue) - therefore the red with appear shifted towards violet and the yellow towards green). To demonstrate this theory, he developed a model which contained 72 scales of tones - arranged from the lightest to darkest.
Later theorists found problems with his model as it did not distinguish between lightness and chroma in the analysis of colour effects (this was not clarified until later on in the 19th Century - Hermann von Helmholtz and Ogden Rood).
I found an interesting website which allows you to test these theories by placing colours against each other:
and also the effect of colour on a particular painting so you can see exactly how different colours affect mood and intensity:
Raoul Duffy's Jeanne with flowers
Monet's "Impression Sunrise" shows the effect of equiluminance (the sun is same tone as the background – the painting looks very flat and tonally imbalanced in black and white – but in colour, the red sun "moves" giving the painting it's brilliance. I think this quite clearly demonstrates how, although tonal balance is always very important in a painting, colour can have a very dramatic effect.
This phenomenon also appears in Monet's "Poppies, nr Argenteuil" – the dominant hues are bright red and bright green – the poppies appear to wave slightly in the breeze because of the effect of equiluminance.
Artists
Van Gogh was influenced by Chevreul's emphasis that colour is influenced by the adjacent colours and tones and that opposing colours in the colour wheel (the furthest apart) reinforce each other when painted next to each other. Although he studied Chevreul's (and Seurat's) work, he then became what he himself described as an arbitrary colourist and sought an emotional/spiritual understanding of the colours he used - he described deep blue as the colour of spiritual rest, and yellow he ascribed to profound religious aspiration.
Eugene Delacroix used these theories especially on shadows - eg, yellow skin has violet shadows, red fabric has greenish shadows, and suggested that a warm gray surrounded by bright blue would give the impression of flesh tones.
Georges Seurat, of course, is most well known for his studies in pointillism / optical mixing. This is based on colour mixing "additively" - that is based on the theory that combining colours of light will make a third colour. However, paint is mixed "subtractively", so that when bright colours combine, they neutralise each other to form a much duller neutral tone (grey, brown or black) which somewhat reduces the effects of optical mixing. This effect very much depends on the size of the blocks of colour used – large areas of complementaries will produce the effect they were searching for, but very small areas of colour has the opposite effect, i.e. the neutralizing of the colours.
Also, Seurat academically applied harmonic colour principles derived from Chevreul who stated the following relationships were harmonic:
Adjacents - calm feel
Opposites - more dramatic
Split-complementary (colour either side of direct complementary) - more dramatic
Triads (three colours equidistant on the colour wheel), eg, orange, green and violet - again, dramatic
No comments:
Post a Comment