MY COLORS
On the Subjective vs. Objective Color Choices
Text: Søren Rosberg (Translation with the help of ChatGPT).
TECHNIQUE
The use of a flat surface, possibly a canvas, along with line, form, and color, are among the few tools available to the visual artist to create a work. The artist's abilities, such as talent, intuition, knowledge, and experience, are added. Great art can be realized with no further prerequisites, provided these elements are brought into play until the desired constellation is achieved. In other words, almost no specific rules or procedures ensure a work's path to the legitimacy characteristic of the concept of "art." Here, talent must and will carry all the way! In this subjective free space, where the artist must make many complex choices, certain eternal principles will naturally be of great help. Notably, the visual artist found objective possibilities among Greek philosophers and mathematicians, such as Euclid and Archimedes. The most well-known is probably "the golden ratio," which many artists use in image construction, known as composition. Additionally, the discovery and development of perspective in Renaissance Italy and Germany were significant.
In his diary, shortly before he died in 1967, Johannes Itten wrote this sentence: "Just as a word first gains its clear meaning in context with other words, individual colors first gain their clear expression and precise meaning in context with other colors."
COLOR
Only in the 1700s, with the contributions of scientists like Newton and Goethe, did we discover that daylight could be split. By directing light through a thin slit in a darkened room and then through a finely ground glass prism, the white light revealed the most beautiful colors in a fixed, orderly sequence from light/warm to dark/cool colors on a white surface in the dark room. Only then did we understand the color play in natural phenomena like the "rainbow," which showed colors in the same order. Thousands of tiny raindrops split the daylight similarly to the glass prism experiment. Around 1810, Goethe arranged the colors in a six-part circle, but it was not until the 1920s that artists received a proper color theory, including a new color circle.
The Swiss painter, art educator, and art theorist Johannes Itten, who taught at the newly established Bauhaus school in Weimar from 1919 to 1922, had a significant influence on contemporary artists and art students, alongside teachers like Kandinsky and Klee. They sought to educate painters, designers, and architects in integrating art, craftsmanship, and architecture in a form adapted to the industrial age. Itten developed a comprehensive color theory for his students, placing the colors in a color circle that enabled work with various color harmonies and contrasts. Most importantly, he identified seven objective rules for understanding color contrasts. Itten's starting point was the three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. These three, also known as basic colors, are colors that cannot be mixed from other colors. Mixing two primary colors yields one of the secondary colors, such as orange, green, or violet.
The work that Itten "revealed" to us is groundbreaking, and one would think that artists would use this new knowledge thereafter. Unfortunately, the subjective choice of colors is still seen and often used, not only in painting but also in the plethora of colors the advertising industry exposes us to, and everywhere colors are used in public spaces. This color orgy disrupts the eye's search for pauses, harmony, and balance. It costs the human body and brain much energy to filter out all these unnecessary color impressions we are unconsciously forced to deal with daily.
Since Lillian Presthus began her career as a visual artist in the early 1980s, color has been of utmost importance to her, both as a medium and as a tool she could use in the composition work. As a student at the West Norwegian Academy of Art in Bergen, she received instruction in color theory and became acquainted with Itten's color theory. She quickly stood on her own, adopting the seven objective contrast relationships necessary for understanding and thinking in colors. If one, like her, is naturally gifted with a sure color sense, spectacular results can find their way to the surface where the "drama" can unfold its potential. She also knows, as in "chaos theory," that the flapping of a butterfly's wings can theoretically cause a storm on the other side of the world. In our issue, it is the color in the upper right corner that must be adjusted concerning a color in the lower left corner of the image. The principle is the same and requires interaction. Or how much red color can a predominantly green image tolerate before it affects the balance in the "weight" of the colors. The answer is about 10%, as red and green are complementary colors, roughly with the same dominant contrast ratio as that between black and white. Moreover, the contrast between cold and warm, green and red, is nearly optimal for two colors. Whether Presthus's painting is moving towards a further dissolution of the figurative element and into a pure form, free from anecdotal content, and into pure non-figurative painting, will be exciting to follow in future exhibitions!
In recent years, Presthus has undertaken teaching work, and with her, Johannes Itten is once again at work. "The work is important," she says. "I see artists without any awareness of the significance of color. They paint with the tubes, but what does it mean for the color? Nothing! Everything drowns in a colorful sea, and no one will later take responsibility for the generation's mistakes. Then oblivion will take over the physical traces of otherwise great efforts in other and entirely relevant areas! Raising awareness of our time's two greatest problems, climate and war!
Therefore, I tell my audience," Presthus continues, "Seek knowledge! The knowledge you gain will be very useful in the many small choices that collectively become your life's color scheme, whether it concerns your home, your clothing, buying flowers, a new car, and not least, buying art, etc. We all have a subjective view of color from birth! What color do I like best? What is your favorite color? Everyone makes subjective color choices, but not all choices and combinations are equally successful! Like the choices an artist must make, with knowledge of the objective color universe created by Itten, you can minimize mistakes in the above-mentioned examples. With your new color vision (compass), you avoid colorful and harsh color combinations, and like the artist, you can tune your instrument, the color, to create harmony and peace in your life. In contrast, art can also bring excitement and drama."
Copenhagen, August 2022. Søren Rosberg.
References:
This article refers to Johannes Itten's "The Elements of Color" published by Borgens Forlag (no longer in trade, but likely still available in antique stores in Danish and Norwegian translations).
In Norwegian translation: Johannes Itten's "The Art of Color and its Elements" by Adlibris Publishing.
