evolution of colour in art

Osip Brik's Photography versus Painting - 1926 says that even the most "gifted painter cannot achieve the degree of reproduction of which the camera is capable...Painting cannot transpose real colours. It can only copy-more or less...The colour media with which a painter works (oil, watercolour, size) have different effect on our eyes than the rays of light which give diverse colours to objects. However much the painter tries he or she cannot go beyond the narrow limits of the palette." - i agree with this and it goes to show that even if painting cannot transpose real colours so how can a computer, and if a paint palette has limits- what sort of limits does a computer palette have?

http://clarissa-b.blogspot.com/2010/02/evolution-of-idea-of-art.html:
Walter Benjamin’s, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction- the main idea he raised was to show the way art changes when it is reproduced. He speaks of being lost in translation- and i agree.

Osip Brik's From Picture to Calico-print. He talks about the role of calico print and easel artists'.Brik thinks that the easel-painting serve no purpose other than pleasing the eye. The easel-painting’s defense was this: without them, there would be no secondary forms of art ( agit poster, sketches for calico prints, and book covers.) Easel paintings are the basis of our art culture. Secondly, the easel artists argue that all artists, no matter their medium, must be a master of all art culture. The easel artist is at the base of all cultural paintings. Brik disagrees with the easel-paintings argument. Why does one have to learn the art of easel painting before he can make a still-life? Painting is an art, not a science. It is not necessary. In the end, he comes to a conclusion that the future is being made in factories and not in the attic studio.

about colour

colour is always considered

after looking at these books i realised that colour is deeply taken into account for a lot of things, esp for houses and remodeling to create environments. this shows the power colour has when its in front of you, however seeing these colours just printed in the form of a book is not as powerful, just as the page showing 'assertive' colours the colours are bright and loud but i feel it would be more 'assertive' if i was put in front of a brightly coloured wall.

this one is based on the use of the words that people gave as their reaction to blue, and using those key words i created words of tiles which can be moved around. its would act like an interactive piece and people could adjust their words either from positive to negative or the way they want to because everyone reads a story and builds up a picture in their own way, and using that they could photograph and place the photo on the wall so people can see peoples different ways of seeing things.

this next experiment is using the key word from the first and last memory of peoples responses and people can form a sentence or long sentence or short story. and again, take a photograph to then place on the wall for others to see.


this is based on the idea of a flip book and the top half of the book refers to a persons first memory and the bottom half relates to the most recent memory and people can form a new story and meaning to blue.

this next idea is based on replacing the differences between people by washing them out in a colour and then overlapping their responses in the form of text.
this idea was inspired by a sex pistols cover: the tear out newspaper lettering and text reforms the altering of design

more RGB

colour and its reactions:
"In the main there are different biological reactions to the two extremes of the spectrum, red and green and blue."

colour is very powerful in print

colour has a great deal of strength and power when its printed and the impact (esp: bright colours!) it makes is just NOT the same on a screen. also colours that are on screen are printed in a different colour-they are not the same.

colour: and everything that affects it

colour- then and now

then:

pigments:
pigments are powders put in a binder with acrylic/oil which covers to a surface. ie: pencil, chalk, crayons etc... for drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics etc...

dyes:
dyes are pigments dissolved in fluid

'the last supper' was created using a fresco technique which requires paint applied to a damp plaster wall in order for pigments to fuse with the plaster as it dries. but leonardo's methods were slow and he could not keep pace with the speed of the drying process. pigment and plaster did not fuse well and over time the paint began to flake off and this is why the fresco technique has recently been restored with mixed results.

now:

4 colour process printing:
screens with black, process yellow, process magenta, process cyan are used and the eye mixes these dots to form hues and the density of the screen and size of dots determine the lightness (small dots) and darkness (big dots)


pantone matching systems:
9 colours and the system shows the % requred to make a colour like a recipe, this then allows the printer to mix inks.


with the development of electronics we are now in the computer age, therefore designers need to be aware of the effects of colour as sometimes the outcome in print is different to what is shown on screen.

colour research

there a few studies in this book that were interesting and somewhat inspired me and somewhat supports my RGB project.

Moses Harris
he presented red, yellow and blue as the primary hues, but on screen the primary colours are red, green and blue.

Michel Eugene Chevreul
he was a french chemist and was part by a weaving studio that specialised in dye. He investigated into colour and its reactions. And he verified that all hues could be obtained from the mixtures of primaries of red, yellow and blue.

Edwald Hering
concerned with the theories of colour perception. He established his primaries as red, yellow, blue and green. He created a diagram using these colours and his diagram was based on perception as opposed to colour mixing.

Alfred Hicketheir
he was a painter and was deeply concerned with colour reproduction in printing through the multicolour gravure process.

the theories of the work above show that there are only 3-4 basic colours needed to create any new colours and that they are all perceived differently based on the hues and mixes. however, they all are concerned with re-creating the colours through mixing as opposed to mixing and recreating on a screen/computer. and this is what is leading me to create a screen-based project using RGB.

screen based RGB

after looking at blue and the responses people gave to blue and their first and last memory of blue. i decided that since i was doing a screen-based project, it would make sense to do 3 colours: Red, Green and Blue, in other words (RGB) which are the 3 main colours used on screen.

screen based blue

colour has many meanings and we are all aware of the studies done on the colour and the impact and symbolism behind it.

but we are not aware that we mostly view colours on a screen nowadays, because everything is computer/screen based now and there is a huge difference in seeing colour in print and the impact it has and seeing colour on a screen and the impact that has on a person.

so i want to focus on the power and impact of: screen based colours



i decided to focus on one colour-blue. because to me blue is a palette of emotions as you go across from light to dark and also to me its the most unisex colour.

so i decided to create a facebook group to get responses on peoples feelings towards blue and then after that get their first and last memory they have of the colour blue.




these are personal definitions and feelings towards blue, but that shade of blue has many other names such as: PANTONE 072c, Atlantic Surf 1, Dickweed, TRUMATCH 38-a, DIC 1855 etc...

Triadic schemes are made up of hues equally spaced around the 12-spoke color wheel. This is one of the more diverse color schemes.

Split complementary schemes are almost as easy as the complementary scheme. In this scheme, instead of using colors that are opposites, you use colors on either side of the hue opposite your base hue

Complementary schemes are created by combining colors from opposite sides of the color wheel. In their most basic form, these schemes consist of only two colors, but can easily be expanded using tones, tints, and shades. A word of warning, though: using colors that are exact opposites with the same chroma and/or value right next to each other can be very jarring visually (they’ll appear to actually vibrate along their border in the most severe uses). This is best avoided (either by leaving white space between them or by adding another, transitional color between them).
Analogous color schemes are the next easiest to create. Analogous schemes are created by using three colors that are next to each other on the 12-spoke color wheel. Generally, analogous color schemes all have the same chroma level, but by using tones, shades and tints we can add interest to these schemes and adapt them to our needs for designing websites.

Monochromatic color schemes are made up of different tones, shades and tints within a specific hue. These are the simplest color schemes to create, as they’re all taken from the same hue, making it harder to create a jarring or ugly scheme (though both are still possible).

color terminology: hue (what color something is, like blue or red); chroma (how pure a color is, the lack of white, black or gray added to it); saturation (the strength or weakness of a color); value (how light or dark a color is); tone (created by adding gray to a pure hue); shade (created by adding black to a pure hue); and tint (created by adding white to a hue).

personal brief #2

so after doing the colours brief i was realised how much interest i had in colour and how i was always inspired by colour. which is what is leading me to base my last and final project on COLOUR.

colour has many definitions as it plays a different role in various contexts.

this shows that certain colours have their own association and symbolism.

• color: a race with skin pigmentation different from the white race (especially Blacks)
• color: modify or bias; "His political ideas color his lectures"
• color: (physics) the characteristic of quarks that determines their role in the strong interaction; "each flavor of quarks comes in three colors"
• color: decorate with colors; "color the walls with paint in warm tones"
• color: interest and variety and intensity; "the Puritan Period was lacking in color"; "the characters were delineated with exceptional vividness"
• color: give a deceptive explanation or excuse for; "color a lie"
• color: the timbre of a musical sound; "the recording fails to capture the true color of the original music
• color: a visual attribute of things that results from the light they emit or transmit or reflect; "a white color is made up of many different wavelengths of light"
• color: add color to; "The child colored the drawings"; "Fall colored the trees"; "colorize black and white film"
• color: the appearance of objects (or light sources) described in terms of a person's perception of their hue and lightness (or brightness) and saturation

this shows that certain colours have their own association and symbolism.

"Individual colors have a variety of cultural associations such as national colors (in general described in individual color articles and color symbolism). The field of color psychology attempts to identify the effects of color on human emotion and activity. Chromotherapy is a form of alternative medicine attributed to various Eastern traditions. Colors have different associations in different countries and cultures.^[9]"

"Color symbolism in art and anthropology refers to the use of color as a symbol in various cultures. There is great diversity in the use of colors and their associations between cultures^[1] and even within the same culture in different time periods^[2]. In fact, the same color may have very different associations within the same culture at any time. For example, red is often used in North America and Europefor stop signs^[3] or danger^[4]. At the same time, red is also frequently used in association with romance, e.g. with Valentine's Day^[5]."

"Color psychology is the study of color as a factor in human behavior. This includes very diverse studies, ranging from quantifying individual color preference^[1] to investigating the relationship between shirt color and match outcome in English football.^[2]"

although colour symbolism is very well known, i am interested to find out more on a personal level what blue means to individuals.

BUT...

i need to figure out...

WHAT I WANT TO FIND OUT?

AND WHY?

WHAT IS IT ABOUT THEIR RESPONSES THAT IS INTERESTING?

either:

branding a colour, as colours are always used a tool to help create a brand, but never branded itself.

OR

challenge the meaning/symbolism of the colour - why does yellow always connote happiness? what if blue was used to connote happiness? to make people uncomfortable.

OR

replacing someones identity with a colour