Rich & Cool

Rich & Cool, from the Single Breakthrough series, 2016, heavy body acrylics mixed with ceramic stucco and iridescent medium, 18" x 24".

"Homage to Goethe's 'Theory of Colours' (1810)"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a German writer, politician, and scientist. He is most often remembered for his two-part tragedy Faust, part I was published in 1808 and part II in 1832.

In 1810 he published his Theory of Colours, which was his analysis on the nature, function, and psychology of colors. He was the first to systematically study the psychological effects of color. He was ahead of his time in many ways, though his treatise was widely disregarded. Goethe anticipated Edwald Hering's opponent process theory (1892), which is the foundation of complimentary colors. In Theory of Colours Goethe wrote,

"The colours diametrically opposed to each other in this diagram are those which reciprocally evoke each other in the eye. Thus, yellow demands violet; orange [demands] blue; purple [demands] green; and vice versa: thus... all intermediate gradations reciprocally evoke each other; the simpler colour demanding the compound, and vice versa."

Another significant inclusion in Goethe's doctrine was his disagreement with Sir Isaac Newton on the subject of light and by extension darkness. I will return to this controversial idea in a future post.

I painted Homage to Goethe's 'Theory of Colors' (1810), in response to Goethe's writings on the psychological effects of hues, tints, and shades. The colors in this painting are my imaginative perceptions and initial reactions to his recorded philosophies on color, and the human psyche's visceral reactions to it.

Though repudiated by most of the science community, many artists and philosophers like Phillip Otto Runge, J.M.W. Turner, Schopenhauer, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Wassily Kandinsky adopted his theories. His Theory of Colours served as the base on which future color theorists would build their own treatise.



Homage to Goethe's 'Theory of Colors' (1810), 2016, heavy body acrylics mixed with ceramic stucco and iridescent medium, 18"x24".







































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"Interactions with Peach"

Interactions with Peach, from the Single Breakthrough series, 2016, heavy bodied acrylics mixed with ceramic stucco and iridescent medium, 18" x 24".

"Munsell's Magenta"

In Munsell's Magenta I am referencing and further exploring Professor Albert H. Munsell's (1858-1918) color system. Albert Munsell was an artist and professor at the Massachusetts Normal Art School (now MassArt). Munsell first started to work on his color system in 1898, his findings and theories were published in 1905 in his book A Color Notation (he went on to publish two more books on his theories). Munsell recognized the need for a more formulaic way to describe color to his students, he felt traditional names were "foolish" and "misleading." He wanted to bring clarity to color communication by establishing an orderly system for identifying every color that exists. He based his system on what he defined as "perceived equidistance" -- the human eye's perception of color. His color system specifies colors based on their hue, value, and chroma. Names like red-orange, aqua, and yellow-green don't exist, instead you will find 10GY, 5RP, 5G, 10P, etc. I am being playful by using "magenta" in the tile of this work, something that I hope Professor Munsell would find amusing.

You can thank Munsell for the way we match and describe color today. He was the first to combine science and art into a single color theory. Because his theories are based in the science of human visual perception it has outlasted many of its contemporary color models and is still in use today.

Munsell's Magenta primarily draws from the following complimentary colors on Munsell's 2D wheel:

     
            (5GY)                          (5P)                         (10GY)                         (10P)                          (5G)                            (5RP)




Munsell's Magenta, from the Single Breakthrough series, 2016, heavy bodied acrylics mixed with ceramic stucco and iridescent medium, 18" x 24".

Pastel Workshop

I recently went to a pastel workshop at the Sharon Arts Center in Sharon, NH. It was the first time I had been in an "art class" type environment since college! I had a great time and picked up a few new tricks. It was also an opportunity to work from still lifes, which I don't typically do! Of course, as you'll see below, I couldn't help starting an abstract piece!



Fall, 2016, pastels on sanded paper.






Fall, 2016, pastels on sanded paper.






Apples, 2016, pastels on sanded paper.






Apples (in progress), 2016, pastels on sanded paper.






Abstract Pastels I: Lime Green & Magenta, 2016, pastels on sanded paper.