NOTES ON STEVEN BLEICHER'S CONTEMPORARY COLOR: THEORY & USE CHAPTER 2
- Every culture has its own concept of color and color usage. - Because color is understood to be part of a spectral continuum, most color theories are visually demonstrated on a circular or infinite format as either as a circle, wheel, or sphere.
-Often the models are based on a tri-chromatic color scheme that include three primary colors, three secondary colors, and six intermediate or tertiary colors, for a total of 12 main divisions. Some versions include 24 or more hues.
-There are many various versions of color wheels, each based on different color relationships, including additive, subtractive, process, and pigment oriented.
- Because Aristotle may be the first person to write a known book about color in his DeColoribus, he is considered the grandfather of color theory. He wrote that all colors were derived from different mixtures of elements in the natural world, specifically colors were a combination of sunlight, firelight, air, and/or water. His basic color palette included red, yellow, blue, green, violet, white, black, and brown.
- Italian Renaissance artist, scientist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci wrote another historically important color theory text that was published after his death in 1651. In his Treatise on Painting da Vinci proposed a palette based on physical manifestations of the natural world. Unlike Aristotle’s estimations of natural color though, each of da Vinci’s proposed six fundamental hues related specifically and directly to a natural element. For example, black related to night or darkness, blue to air, green to water, red to fire, yellow to earth, and white to light. He was also devoutly spiritual and regarded the natural world as a manifestation of spiritual reality.
- Isaac Newton is considered the father of modern color theory. He was the first to base his color observations on modern scientific investigative methods. In his 1701 book, Opticks, he documented his experiments with the diffraction of light through a prism, which is how he devised his color spectral range. He realized that the prism broke down, then bent white light to show the seven hues that make up the ROY G BIV color spectrum…red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
- In 1703 J. C. LeBlon developed the theory of three primary colors- red, yellow, and blue. His premise was that these three colors were the purest, meaning they could not be broken down further, whereas all other hues could be made using some combination of them. LeBlon also developed the four primary color schemes used in printing, CMYK-cyan, magenta, yellow and black, which we still use in printing today.
- Poet Johann W. von Goethe was disappointed by Newton’s scientific methods, so rather than focusing on what happened with light, he zeroed in on what the eye perceives and visual phenomena. In 1810 he wrote Theory of Colors, which brings order to the world by organizing color. Goethe’s 1810 color wheel is like %Moses Harris’ 1766 color wheel from his book The Natural System of Color with colors equally spaced.
- Goethe’s additionally illustrates the relationship of the primary and secondary hues to their corresponding complementary pairs, which he called reciprocally evoked colors and placed opposite one another on the color wheel.
- Goethe observed light and shadow and realized that shadows are not purely black or gray, but also contain complementary colors. His writings influenced the Impressionists and Post Impressionists, especially Van Gogh. Van Gogh read Goethe’s color theory and used it in many paintings.
- French chemist Michel Eugene Chevreul developed the basic concepts of hue (color), purity (saturation), and value (luminosity) below.
- Ogden Rood, late 19th C. artist-scientist and contemporary of Chevreul’s, wrote Modern Chromatics. In it he outlined his theory of visual color mixing, which states that when two or more colors are placed side-by-side our eyes optically perceive the colors as blended. French pointillists, who thought of themselves as Divisionists, employed Rood’s visual color mixing theory.
- In his Divisionism methods, French Post-Impressionist painter Georges Seurat practiced the chemist Chevreul’s ideas about color harmonies, and artist/scientist Rood’s visual color mixing theory. (Because he disapproved of the interpretation and application, Rood was apparently deeply upset.)
- 20th C. Swiss born artist-designer, color theorist and Bauhaus Design Professor Johannes Itten published a book The Art of Color, which describes his ideas as a furthering of his teacher Adolf Hölzel's color wheel.
-Itten developed a color sphere, and its flattened-out or “mapped” version, which he called a 12-hued color star. Expanding out form the white center of it are various tints (color + added white) of the many hues leading to the points of the star where the purest most intense form of the hue ("pure" color...no added white, gray or black) is placed.
- His studies of color palettes and color interaction directly influenced his student Joseph Albers and op artists of the 1960’s Op Art movement, as well as other Western abstract color-based movements.
- Albers continued Itten's formal color investigations of how colors interact with one another. He studied optical illusions of color, making one color appear like two different colors, depending on which color ground it was placed. His format was always the same, rectangles or squares within squares; only the hues change. He also found that two different hues could be made to look the same, depending on which color ground they were place. In these works, to the exclusion of all else, formal color study is the subject. During the decades of the mid 20th C., Albers taught at Yale and had a tremendous influence on a group of artists who became known as the Minimalists. Minimalists Sol Lewit and Donald Judd were among his most renown 20th students.
- *Albert H. Munsell, considered the father of modern color classification, built upon Ogden Rood’s concept of color attributes, assigned a numerical notation system to the elements so that hues and their variations could be organized and classified, and created the first three-dimensional color wheel.
- The CIE color chart concept is based on the additive process RGB, or red, green, and blue primaries. These values also related to the short, medium, and long wavelengths of the human eye’s cones or color receptors. It was developed for the computer industry by the CIE and is the basis for digital color systems*.
-Like the United Nations of light and color, the Commission International D’Eclairage, or CIE is an international non-profit organization focused on technical, scientific, and cultural applications of light and color. Its membership is voluntary. The CIE was formed in 1931 to develop a precise, device-independent color model or color matching system for use in both scientific and artistic applications. Its design is based on mathematical algorithms and mechanics as opposed to the earlier color matching systems that were based on subjective visual identification.
- To define the fear of color and the use of color David Batchelor, a pioneer of contemporary color theory, coined the term chromophobia. It is also the title of one of his books.
- Batchelor argues that in the 1950s Abstract Expressionist painters departed from the mixing color on a palette and moved to pre-manufactured paint color selections, which were available in cans, and that it marks what he borrows from Duchamp, the notion of their use of a “ready-made” color selection process.
-This move away from traditional color palette mixing, coincides with artists move away from the practical use of color theory, and from the use of color circles. Instead, he argues that artists use manufactured color charts to select their palettes.
-He makes the case that this was the precursor to contemporary artists use of digital color selection…color selection via computer. This ultimately eliminated the brushwork or artist’s “hand”.
- Color forecasting is another form of color theorizing, not for classification and categorization but for purely aesthetic use by designers and artists. CAUS (The Color Association United States) may be one of the oldest color-forecasting services. Others include the Color Council and Trend Union.
Color Theory Timeline
...adapted from Steven Bleicher's
350 BCE - Aristotle- DeColorbus (The first book on color theory)
1500 - da Vinci- Treatise on Painting (published posthumously in 1651)
1703 - Newton - Opticks published
1703 - LeBlon - Develops concept of primary hues
1766 - Harris - Natural System of Color published
1818 - Goethe - Theory of Color published
1855 - Chevreul - The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colors, and Their Applications to the Arts published
1879 - Rood - Modern Chromatics published
1905 - Munsell - Color Notations published. Three-Dimensional color wheel developed.
1916-18 - Ostwald - Color Science, The Color Primer and The Color Atlas published
1920 - Itten - The Art of Color published (and Color Star developed)
1931 - CIE - the Commission International D'Eclairage develops chromaticity chart based on wavelengths not actual color.
1963 - Albers - Interaction of Color published
2000- Batchelor - Chromophobia published
