Blog Assignment 5

Colour—abstraction, perception and modernity

How has the experience and experimentation of artists influenced our understanding of colour and the development of a theory of ‘colour vision’?

Around the 19th century artists Goethe and JWM Turner started to experiment more with colour, light and shade in their painting. Through their experiments with colour they learnt that when some colours are placed next to each other that they look different. Michel Eugene said that the change in colour isn't because there is something wrong with the paint but it is how out eyes deceive the colour with it surroundings. This is called Simultaneous Contrast. In the book "Colours of the Mind in Colour and Culture: Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction(pp.191-212)" it says “I use the simplest colours. I don’t transform them myself, it is the relationships which take charge of them” (Gage, 1993) I believe this is a good quote to help understand 'colour vision' because i think that 'colour vision is how our eyes deceive the colours which we see. I think the quote is saying that he uses just plain colours and that the outcome of the painting depends on how you view the different colours all together.


I think that if artists like Goethe didn't experiment with colours then art in this century would be very different than they are now and that we wouldn't have gotten out 'colour vision'.

Bibliography

Gage, J. (1993). Colour and Culture: Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction. New York: Thames and Hudson.

Blog assignment 4

Ornament or Nature

Adolf Loos argued in this essay ‘Ornament and Crime’ that “The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from objects of daily use.” He is stating that it is a crime to add ornament onto an object to change people perception on the object.

I agree with what Loos says in his essay. The main reason people put ornament on objects are to make increase the value of the object. Something that may be only $20 without ornaments can easily be $50 with ornaments added to it.

I agree with Loos because I think all the stuff which people use for ornaments is waste of materials that could be used more productively somewhere else.

Here is a mirror which has a lot of ornament on it which most of it is very unnecessary. The ornaments on this mirror would greatly increase the value of this mirror when all you really need is the mirror and a frame.

image from: http://mpmm-hannibal.blogspot.com/2010/06/part-ii-florence.html