COLOUR JOURNEYS (CONT) .
a bigger impact on the viewer. With the invention of photography however there was no longer a need to capture realistic subject matter, but it took a long time before this new style of art was accepted by society. procedures took over before full scale manufacturers came onto the scene. Techniques have evolved to produce synthetic colour without the need for masses of natural resources. Today there is an abundance of colour on Horse powered paint mills and then eventually steamdriven themarket with innovations that continue to inspire and develop our understanding. Nevertheless, there is growing interest in the oldmethods of colour making as people search for authenticity and rediscover traditional recipes and formulas, ensuring key movements in history are not lost forever.
formulations and advised artists of the time, not that they always heeded his advice. Some new pigments on the market were bright and vibrant but not necessarily stable. Turner pushed the boundaries experimenting with new vivid pigments even though he was warned they would eventually fade. It wasn’t just new pigments that were developing, theories on colour were also growing and this in turn influenced great artists to push the boundaries of painting and colour. JohannWolfgang von Goethe had several careers in his lifetime ranging from lawyer, poet and philisopher. In 1810 he published Theory of Colours. Some critics argued his theories on light weremisguided but he understood colour required human perception for it to be processed and this led him to discover the experience of seeing a colour opposite after time spent staring at an individual colour, ‘for the colours diametrically opposed to each other in this diagramare those which reciprocally evoke each other in the eye. Thus, yellow demands purple; orange, blue; red, green; and vice versâ’. The sensation Goethe refers to is known as the after image effect, and from this Goethe learnt of colour opposites (complementary colours) and arranged colours strategically in a ‘chromatic circle’. Goethe was also the first person to recognise the psychological impact of colours, and although his findings were subjective, his originality opened up a new route of exploration for colour. Michael Chevreul was a French chemist who worked at the
Gobelins Dye Factory in Paris and eventually became director. During his time as director he proceeded to address complaints that the dyes were dull and lack lustre. He realised the dyes were fine but when woven threads were placed next to certain colours they appeared grey. He learnt that the appearance of colours can be highly dependent on the relationship with surrounding colours. Chevreul published his findings, On the Law of Simultaneous Contrast of Colours (1839), and these were circulated Impressionist artists strove to capture nature in themoment and explored the relationship between light and shade and all the colours produced as a result. With the increasing availability of new synthetic pigments in brighter colours (some unstable or not fully tested), and the invention of tube paint, the Impressionists had a new set of tools to play with. in Paris and this became highly influential for the Impressionist art movement. Paint was initially sold in cleaned pigs bladders in concentrated form to be later let down with linseed oil. The Impressionists challenged the art world and the traditional values it upheld. They used colour in a way that had never been used before, a key example being the use of purple to depict shadows. Previously shadows were always shown in either black or brown but the Impressionists wanted maximun impact and what better way than to select purple for shadows, the colour opposite to that of the sun. Using contrasting colours makes them more noticeable and vibrant, and has
“Colours produce a corresponding influence on themind. Experience teaches us that particular colours excite particular states of feeling.” JohannWolfgang von Goethe (1810)
The brightest colours available were ultramarine blue and variations of red; cochineal and vermillon. The rest of the pigments were quiet and subdued, and this gave the art from this period a stylistic quality. Shadows were always portrayed in blacks and browns and lighting techniques such as chiaroscuro became synonymous with the period. Renaissance artists fully understood thematerials they used, but, unfortunately, such dedication and knowledge was not always maintained and in later years great works of art have been distorted as a result of pigments darkening or reacting with neighbouring colours. Painting was traditionally seen as a craft because of the time consuming work of grinding, mixing and preparing pigments until Leonardo challenged the notion expressing how artists were required to study anatomy and the sciences to paint accurately. Apprentices would often prepare pigments and canvasses and themasters would the add the finishing touches. Apothecaries and colour men would take over the preparation of colour,still hand grinding the pigments, although some colour men were moremeticulous than others in the preparation of colour. George Field, a well known colour chemist, was known for testing the qualities of colour
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