Color Explorations Notes

JULY 13 - AUGUST 17; Every Monday

COURSE NOTES

Jump to:

CLASS 1: Where did color come from?

Color as material from the earth.

CLASS 2:  Can color imitate nature?
The Renaissance search for realism

CLASS 3: Can darkness be beautiful?
Baroque color and the drama of light

CLASS 4:What if color is light itself?
Romanticism, Japanese prints, Impressionism

CLASS 5: What if color expresses emotion instead of reality?
Van Gogh, Gauguin, Munch, Fauves

CLASS 6: Episode 6 — What if color becomes the subject?
Abstraction to digital color

CLASS 5: What if Color Expresses Emotion Instead of Reality?
Van Gogh, Gauguin, Munch, Fauves, Frida Kahlo

Part 1: Beyond Impressionism

Color as Perception and Science

Key Concepts

  • Pointillism

  • Divisionism

  • Optical Mixing

  • Simultaneous Contrast

  • Scientific Color Theory

  • Visual Perception

  • Harmony

Georges Seurat

Works

  • A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

  • Bathers at Asnières

  • The Circus

Georges Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

Georges Seurat, Bathers at Asnières

Hokusai, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, 1831

Okumura Masanobu, Shibai Ukie (Perspective Picture of a Play), 1741

Part 2: Romanticism — Color as Experience

Romanticism

  • Nature

  • Emotion

  • The Sublime

  • Atmosphere

  • Imagination

J.M.W. Turner, The Slave Ship, 1840

Eugene Delacroix, La Mort de Sardanapale, 1827

Romanticism

  • Nature

  • Emotion

  • The Sublime

  • Atmosphere

  • Imagination

Part 3: The Science and Technology of Color

Color Science — Michel Eugène Chevreul

Key Concepts

  • Simultaneous Contrast

  • Complementary Colors

  • Optical Mixing

  • Adjacent colors influence one another

Technology

Tube paints (John Goffe Rand)

Portable easels

Industrial pigments

  • Cerulean

  • Cobalt

  • Cadmium

  • Viridian

  • Synthetic Ultramarine

Michel Eugène Chevreul, Cercle Chromatique, 1861

Early Winsor & Newton collapsible paint tubes

Part 4: Impressionism

Key Concepts

  • Broken color

  • Optical mixing

  • Changing light

  • En plein air

  • Local vs perceived color

Claude Monet, Impression: Sunrise, 1872

Camille Pisarro, Late Afternoon in our meadow, 1887

Mary Cassatt, Woman bathing,1891

Exercises: Kaki study (Ukiyo-e)and Lemon Study (impressionist)