Objectives

Chapter 7 illustrates how artists and designers use Light and Color to further illustrate spatial relationships. The first studies by Isaac Newton laid the groundwork for the later theories of Johann von Goethe, Johannes Itten, and Josef Albers, as well as all the artists and scientists who have contributed theories on the physics and psychology of color. Ultimately, our world is revealed to us through light...and our ability to differentiate color makes the world more intelligible and provides variety. Science has shown us many objective properties of color, but it remains the most subjective of the visual elements—color is perceived differently by everyone. Understanding color relationships, cultural preferences, and even the process of mixing colors, will help you to further appreciate how artists use color, and how you respond to certain colors.

After reading this chapter you should:

1. know the definitions of key terms associated with light and color including:
   • additive and subtractive color mixing
   • atmospheric or aerial perspective
   • chiaroscuro
   • cross-hatching and hatching
   • divisionism
   • hue, key, and intensity or saturation
   • local, perceptual, optically mixed, and arbitrary color
   • palette
   • penumbra, umbra and cast shadow
   • pointillism
   • primary, secondary and intermediate colors
   • spectrum
   • temperature
   • tenebrism

2. understand how many color relationships are based on the manner in which we perceive color, and how certain colors seem to react with or against one another. As an example, how does the phenomena of simultaneous contrast impact our ability to respond to complementary color schemes?

3. know how light and an object's surface contribute to our perception of its color.

4. understand how color and light contribute to our understanding of mass, volume, and space, and how architects manipulate these elements when they design buildings.

5. know the difference between atmospheric perspective and scientific perspective.

6. see how artists use chiaroscuro, tenebrism, hatching and cross-hatching, as well as other light modeling techniques, to create the sensation of the three-dimensional form.

7. recognize that there are cultural and religious associations with light and color. This sometimes contributes to our misinterpretation of works from cultures other than our own.

8. know why mixing pigments is called subtractive mixing, and mixing refracted light is called additive mixing.

9. see how the Munsell wheel was developed, and how it differs from Newton's wheel.

While reading this chapter, you will probably find some of the most provocative information to be the manner in which the cited artists have used color. Henri Matisse attempted additive and subtractive color mixing with paint; the Impressionists studied optical mixing, allowing their bold strokes of color to mix "in the eye," when viewed from a distance. Chuck Close studies a similar phenomena in his work, Stanley. A later artist, George Seurat, took optical mixing to an extreme level. Other artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Wassily Kandinsky, sought to convey a certain "spirituality" in the colors they employed. Ultimately, color is something most of us accept naturally, both in our environment and in the way artists describe our environment. The more we know about color, however, the more we can come to appreciate the skillful and creative use of color we see in any artist's work.

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