------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CS 99D - Color #3 - March 8, 2001 Marc Levoy Stanford University (c) 2001 (with corrections, March 14, 2003) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** History of color in art *** 1510 Leonardo o aerial perspective -> Virgin and Child with St. Anne, Honour, p. 441 o scattering -> mixture of rays from distance object with glancing reflections of sun from water droplets -> desaturation o refraction and multiple scattering -> blurring o Raleigh scattering -> increased blueness ==> Demonstrate using bottle of milk-water & flashlight The Venetian school: -> Giovanni Bellini's San Giobbe Alterpiece (1490), Gardner, p. 775, versus -> Giovanni Bellini's San Zaccaria Alterpiece (1505), Gardner, p. 776 (or Gombrich, p. 327) o number of figures reduced, o perspective de-emphasized (viewpoint is higher), and o color becomes a primary compositional element o variations of red encircle the virgin's ultramarine blue robe o "pictorial color" -Bridget Riley, in Lamb o Florence -versus- Venice designo colore intellectual emotional rational sensual idealized specific masculine feminine stern gentle o Venice was the center of the European pigment trade 1490-76 Titian -> Madonna of the Pesaro (1526), Gardner, p. 780 (or Gombrich, p. 330, with detail on p. 332), versus o reds encircle a blue, like Bellini, but o Virgin off-center, on diagonal, counterbalanced by flag o composition of colors reinforce composition of forms -> Venus of Urbino (1538), Gardner, p. 781 o red at LL and UR balance diagonal of form from UL to LR o browns of dog balance browns of hair o composition of colors as counterpoint to composition of forms o subtlety of color variation only visible on original (Uffizi) o these sorts of rules are hard to understand and emulate Other compositional uses of color -> Caravaggio's The Burial of Christ (1604), Lamb, p. 38 o vertical of red tunic + yellow of Christ makes a cross, but o generally speaking, he subjugated color to chiaroscuro o light and shadow was easier to comprehend than color, so o his influence lasted until the Impressionists, who "banished tonal painting and rinsed color clean again" -Bridget Riley, p. 37 o but here are some attempts to mimic Titian-like compositions: -> Ruben's The Judgement of Paris (1657), Lamb, p. 42 o rhythmic notes of red across larger masses of flesh o diagonally balanced accents of blue o subtlety of coloring reminisicent of Titian -> Velazquez's Las Meninas (1656), Lamb, p. 44 o shades of gray used as hues, not in chiaroscuro o subtheme of pinks, from boy to Maltese cross on painter -> Vermeer's The Milkmaid (1658), Lamb, p. 45 o yellows above, where lit, and blues below, where shadowed o bread below and pitcher above are counterpoints Romanticism (early 1800's): o Trends: o less conern with linear perspective among artists o less knowledge transfer from scientists to artists, except o more work on color and perception (Young, Helmholtz) o vigorous debate on whether science was useful to painters: o didn't explain how light interacts with matter o didn't explain how to capture effects using painting o didn't explain how to handle/mix specific pigments o At the same time: o reaction against academies growing among artists -> Show typical exhibition, Gombrich SoA, p. 497 o Impressionists mounted their own exhibition o `Salon of the rejected' (1863) o artist as individualist, self-taught, outdoorsman, realism, equal in status to his patron, and higher than the servant -> Courbet's The Meeting (1854), Gombrich SoA, p. 510 o And also: o Romanticism carps against mathematicizing influences "God forbid that truth should be confined to mathematical demonstration." - Blake, in Kemp, p. 252 o direct refutation of the scientific revolution. Compare to: "Mathematics is the language of precise thinking." - Hamming o Romanticism in art: o perspective loses ground to optical effects (already shown?) -> Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People (1830), Gardner, p. 946 -> Turner's The Slave Ship (1840), Gardner, p. 951 o The invention of photography o Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, 1839 -> Daguerre's Still Life in Studio (1837), Gardner, p. 959 o William Henry Fox Talbot, 1839 Impressionism: (from Kemp) 1839 Michel-Eugene Chevreul's De la loi du constrast sumultane des couleurs o chemist o color sphere o longitude is hue o radius is lightness - white at core, black at surface o latitude is saturation - fully saturated at equator o studies of complementary colors o studies of (additive) color mixing in weaving 1854 Eugene Delacroix's Dieppe notes o "banish all earth colors" - he didn't manage this o prismatic palette o create mixtures by liason ("flochettage") o learned from Chevreul's studies of weaving -> Expulsion of Heliodorus (1861), Kemp, p. 309, and detail on p. 331 o notes published in 1865 1863 `Salon of the rejected' o spurred by protests from artists rejected by the academy, but o salon actually created by the order of Emperor Napoleon III o included works by Manet, Whistler 1870's "High" Impressionism o Manet, Monet, Renoir o colors mixed by liason are more saturated than mixed pigments -> Claude Monet's Luncheon (1874), Gardner, p. 990 o light shadows is a cue of strong (outdoor) interreflections -> Claude Monet's Rouen Cathedral (1894), Gardner, p. 991 o complementary colors is a cue of bright (outdoor) light o effect of this revolution on art criticism -> Read critical review, Gombrich, p. 518 "The [art] critics who had laughed had proved very fallible indeed. Had they bought these canvases rather than mocked them they would have become rich. Criticism therefore suffered a loss of prestige from which it never recovered." -Gombrich, p. 523 1878 Hermann von Helmhotz's On the relation of Optics to Painting o assigned reading for class 1879 Odgen Rood's Modern Chromatics o professor of physics at Columbia University o artist should "paint with light" 1880's Neo-Impressionism o Pissaro, Seurat -> Seurat's La Grande Jatte (1884), Gardner, p. 995 o pointillism, a.k.a. divisionism o `peinture optique' - chrominance without luminance o the only attempt to mechanically apply modern color theory o an ultimate failure for a variety of reasons - the world does contain darkness, no way to paint it by additive combinations of primary colors - complementary colors and mach bands work only if if you gaze at the boundary, not one area or another -------------------------------------------------------------------------------