I was disappointed that I was not feeling well enough to attend class for our Interaction of Color discussion. I've been sick for the past few days, camped out in my dorm room. Class notes that anyone wants to volunteer would be greatly appreciated.
I read Interaction of Color three summers ago as part of a basic color theory course that I took at RISD pre-college. The book served as a reference for the class as we executed a number of Albers' color exercises. I remember they were incredibly frustrating and difficult. My eyes often hurt and became insensitive to even major tonal and saturation differences after a few hours of work. Carl Fasano was my teacher. The entire class worshiped him and competed for seats closer to him when he showed us color aid demos. I remember at the end of our first class he demonstrated after image phenomena and various forms of subtractive contrast. It was one hundred degrees out that day and possibly warmer in the stuido and I remember leaving the class, completely dehydrated and slightly delusional, convinced that Carl Fasano's class was more than just a series of lessons... it was a cause! From what I've read about Albers' and also Hans Hoffman's color theory courses it seems that color theory students have a tendency to get exceptionally fanatical and obsessive about what they are learning. (Carl continues to teach painting at RISD, one of his pieces is now on view in the faculty biennial at the museum if anyone is interested in joining the cult...) If anyone is interested in trying some of the exercises with color aid paper I can bring some in after class. Mine is a little bit scratched. New color aid boxes cost from $50 to $200 dollars depending on the range of colors you want, but are worth looking at at the RISD store.
In class last week some discussion surfaced about parallels between Warhol and Cage. We also discussed Cage's interest in dissonance and new ways to structure tonality. I think reading Interaction of Color made manifest for me some strong relationships between Cage and Albers. For example, p. 70:
"We emphasize that color harmonies, usually the special interest or aim of color systems, are not he only desirable relationship. As with tones in music, so with color-- dissonance is as desirable as its opposite, consonance."
Whereas Warhol expanded our visual lexicon (what can we legitimately put onto the picture plane?) and blurred the lines between advertising, pop culture and fine art, Albers redefined the plastic arts' formal grammar. His idea that space can be acheived through color relationships, not exclusively perspectival systems of illusion, opened doors for Hans Hoffman and an entire generation of teachers and painters interested in exploring flatness.
So I was excited about the importance of Interaction of Color in terms of the history of painting as I read it for the second time last week. I was also excited to see that many of Albers' pedagogical observations underscore some of the major Black Mountain values our class has discussed. His riff on art education as an "essential part of general education" on page 70 is just one example.
Lastly, I e-mailed one of my art teachers from Washington University with some specific questions about color from Albers. He responded with two rather lengthy e-mails that I think speak to the importance of Albers' theories in the contemporary painters' practice as well as the bizarre obsession that painters have with color. He mentions a book that looks very interesting. I am going to try and buy a used copy and bring it to class at some point. I pasted in some highlights of the e-mails below.
See you next Tuesday,
Amy
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Amy,
The physical visual mixing relationship is the most difficult one in starting painting. Dark tones will usually dominate light ones. Some colors or types of whites will have very different reactions when put into a mixing relationship. For example indian red will dominate a lot of mixes, titanium white can be awful because its so blue and tints all colors. Its why all college students paintings look opaque because of the heavy reliance on it in their palettes. Cremnitz and lead function more tonally and have less chromatic influence...
...The color aid paper is how I taught color theory at Kendall. But we also did a lot of mixing to. I guess that Albers' thought color recognition is easier to see than create. His quote in the beginning of Interaction of Color has always slightly offended me: "First, color paper avoids unnecessary mixing of paints, which is often difficult, time-consuming and tiring." Yeah, no shit. That's why painters have spend their whole lives on it! The idea is that by finding is the first step to help identify what you would have to create. My prof who studied with Alber's said the paper has really diminished in quality over the last 15 years.
That's about it for now. Let me know what's happening and let's talk color at some point!
Bruce
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Amy,
Another thing... What happens on your palette can appear very different when applied to your painting. For a lot of painters, working on a wooden hand-held palette offers a middle gray ground (the color of the wood) that allows you to calibrate at least the value of the colors. This helps you get the value of the color closer. Since I work on a white ground palette (my palette is a sheet of glass that has been sanded on the back side and painted white and then flipped over so I paint of the clean side of the glass) my colors usually appear darker on my palette than when I put them onto my painting. I do this because my paintings in the past have been dark so this compensate somewhat by keeping my closers lighter. As with all painters, you learn to mix from experience of what you think will happen once its applied--not so much as what it appears on your palette. It's like investing money--you think long term and plan for where it will end up rather than where you are.
I know some people who paint on a middle grey primed glass palette to help keep things in check. Some of my friends and I tried painting on colored palettes to really influence the whole range of colors in a painting. So if I wanted to make a warm red painting I tried using something complementary like a cool neutral green. It really worked but was so influential that I stopped using it. It might be fun for you to try.
You should also check out the book that influenced George Bellows so heavily. Bellows was quite interested in color systems and compositional devices. This book is called On Drawing and Painting by Denman Ross. In this particular read, Ross talks about arranging colors based on close chromatic relationships that are premixed and arranged by value in 7 steps. There are a number of these specific palettes that were developed and according to a Bellows' monograph number 9 and 10 were based on Ruben's paintings and were the most complex. Check it out.
There is plenty more to come!
Bruce