It All Begins with Colour
Colour is a fundamental element in art and influences how we see a piece of artwork and how we respond to it emotionally. Colour can attract, alert, create calm and quiet, or even camouflage. In nature colour can be a matter of life and death.
If you met me, you would not necessarily say that I am a colourful person. I wear muted dark colours and live in places with white-washed walls. My canvases, however, tell a different story.
It was not until my mid-twenties that I discovered the power of colour. On seeing my first Barnett Newman painting in Chicago, my eyes were opened to the works of the American Abstract Expressionists. I loved Newman’s seemingly effortless spacing of colours and the understated rhythm of his compositions. I felt a deep connection.
The groundwork for colour theory goes back to the 19th century to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and his contemporary Issac Newton. Whereas the latter advocated for a scientific understanding of colour as a product of light and prisms, Goethe focused on the subjective experience of colour and the psychological effects of various colours on human perception and mood. His book ‘Theory of Colours’ (published in 1810 in German and in 1840 in English) turned out to be groundbreaking.
Our human eyes have sensors for red, blue, and green light, which combine to enable us to see a wide range of colours. But not everybody sees the same colours in the same way. Colour perception changes with increasing age and young people see colours more brightly than older people.
As a girl my favourite colour was yellow, a colour I have returned to in recent years. While most people tend to associate certain colours with specific objects, for me this colour never represented the sun, marigolds, or the double yellow lines outside my city flat. Instead I am fascinated by the deep saturation and pure luminosity of the colour itself. Recently I counted eleven different shades of yellow oil paint in my studio, ranging from opaque, through semi-opaque to almost transparent. Excessive, some may say, but modest in my opinion, and still a far cry from the 212 different shades of yellow used by the famous Bauhaus teacher Josef Albers.
Albers is best known for his ‘Homage to the Square’ series, in which he explores the interplay of colours, usually within either three or four nested squares. His influential book ‘Interaction of Color’ (1963) delves deep into colour theory and has left an enduring impact on the world of abstract artists and on me.
Johannes Itten, first a Bauhaus teacher and then a colleague of Albers, developed a useful resource for exploring colour. His set of principles named ‘Seven Colour Contrasts’ explores how to create visual effects through colour.
Some contrasts are well known, such as the Light-Dark Contrast, which describes the contrast between light and dark shades of the same colour.
Most people are also familiar with the Warm-Cold Contrast. Warm colours such as reds and oranges tend to reach to the front, while greens and blues appear to recede. Using both warm and cold colours on the same canvas can result in a vivid dialogue, a rhythm and movement that transform the two-dimensional canvas into a three-dimensional arena.
The Complementary Contrast shows colours which sit opposite each other on the colour wheel, such as red and green, orange and blue, or yellow and purple. It is a powerful contrast which immediately wins the viewer’s attention.
A lesser known contrast is the Simultaneous Contrast which highlights how a single colour can be perceived entirely differently depending on their neighbouring colours.
The Contrast of Hue shows how colours differ based on their position on the colour wheel. To achieve vibrancy select distant colours, such as blue and orange, or red and green; for a more subtle effect go with yellow and orange, which sit next to each other on the colour wheel.
The Saturation Contrast distinguishes between bright vivid colours on one hand and dull, muted colours on the other. Most of us are familiar with this contrast as it can make a huge difference in manipulating digital images.
The Extension Contrast plays a significant role in some of my own large abstract paintings. One colour takes centre stage, while an array of others compete in the wings. The effect is a change to the overall balance. The colours start to flicker at the edges, to bring a nervous energy to the painting.
Most of us, however, do not necessarily recognise these contrasts on seeing a painting. Still, we are likely to take notice of something subconsciously; to feel the painting rather than interpret it.
A client once told me that she felt my colours were ‘zinging’, in motion backwards and forwards across the canvas, harmonising in places and creating dissonance in others. She could not have described my work more accurately: a painting is finished when the colours begin to move.
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