Background Colour

I thought I'd try different background colours - this black is to see what difference it makes to the text and pics - I'd appreciate any comments.

I should like to duplicate the blog so that I can see it with a white background and a black one at the same time - to compare them. I'm looking for an easy way to do this!

COLOUR v FORM

As part of my Masters in Drawing As Process I have been working on a module entitled Theorising Individual Pratice (TIP). For my final Master's Project I am using light and colour; the TIP module was an opportunity to investigate and collate information on colour. Here is an excerpt - it is very wordy so feel free to skip to the previous post...

COLOUR v FORM

In response to David Batchelor’s book, ‘Chromophobia’ in general and to his statement in particular that in the West, ‘since Antiquity, colour has been systematically marginalised, reviled, diminished and degraded…This loathing of colour, this fear of corruption through colour, needs a name: chromophobia.’ [David Batchelor, Chromophobia, 2000, London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 1 86189 074 5, page 22]

Batchelor sets out to show how colour has been subordinate(d) to form throughout the West in all areas of life and says if colour ‘were a furry animal, it would be protected by international law’. [Batchelor, pg 22] Colour is a cause worth fighting for and Batchelor’s own work ‘reintroduces’ colour to our world.

So, intrigued, I decided to do some investigation into colour versus form and to try to quantify this in some way. I present here a somewhat light-hearted, and necessarily superficial (given the limited scope of this project) look at COLOUR versus FORM.

Blue happens to be the favourite colour of almost 50% of people in the western world. [Joe Hallock’s survey on the internet www.joehallock.com/edu/COM498, and Herman Pleij, ‘Colors demonic and divine: shades of meaning in the Middle Ages and after’, 2004, New York, Chichester: Columbia University Press, 0 23113 022 8] Red, I find, has the effect of lowering the IQ when trying to concentrate [article from Body & Soul, JohnNaish, ‘Bedevilled by Red’, The Times, 20 March 2007, pg3].

Colour and Form in Nature

Although colour is totally dependent on light, and objects in themselves have no colour, we perceive that objects/surfaces/liquids etc have an identifiable colour. The light waves reflected by on object etc give its colour, so grass absorbs all light except green, so we see grass is green.

Nature is abounding in colour, vivid green evokes health and vitality, but how important is the form of grass? Some animals have only 2 colour rods in their retinas (where we have 3) and perceive only limited colours. They are not able to see red, for instance. So if grass and leaves were red they could not forage. An example, I think of the species evolving to suit the environment. Bees are attracted to bright colours, especially purple [fact displayed at Kew Gardens in October 2006] – how would they pollenate if flowers were green and could not be differentiated from leaves?

The sky appears bright blue and has no form, it is boundless.

The sun appears as a yellow disc – the form, a sphere, results from its origin and is thus vital. Its perceived colour changes from yellow to red at sunset, ergo the form must dominate.

In Painting ...

How important is colour in painting? Pre-historic drawings/paintings were narratives using not only earth toned ochres/pigments but also a white made from animal bones and calcite [New Scientist report quoted by Tom Fraser and Adam Banks in ‘The Complete Guide to Colour’, 2004, London: The Ilex Press Ltd, 1 904705 22 7, pg 50]. The Egyptians fired a blue from lime, copper oxide and quartz [Fraser and Banks, pg 50]. As colour pigments became more widely available they were incorporated into painting, and in the thirteenth century ‘blue took its place alongside these hues [red, white and black] as their worthy companion.’ [Herman Pleij, pg 17]

‘Colour began to break loose from the rigid outlines of drawing in the sixteenth century work of the Venetian artist Titian (c 1490 - 1576) who is considered one of the greatest colorists of all times.’ [Paul Zelansky and Mary Pat Fisher, Colour, 1989, London: The Herbert Press Ltd, 0-906969-94-8, pg 115] By the nineteenth century Delacroix was seeking to ‘recreate natural lighting by a sort of additive optical mixing on the canvas’, juxtaposing pure bright pigments so as to make them merge when viewed at a distance. [Zelansky and Fisher, pg 115] The Impressionists, the Expressionists and the Fauves all sought to use colour in new and exciting ways, breaking down classic forms and reassembling them to create their interpretations of landscape and urban scenes. Colour was developing its own persona.

Yves Klein had a monochromatic practice and yet was a foremost colourist of the twentieth century. ‘Colour is sensibility in material form, matter in its primordial state. – Yves Klein, “Ma position dans le combat entre la ligne et la couleur” (Paris 1958)’ [Jane Alison (ed), Colour after Klein: Re-thinking colour in modern and contemporary art, 2004, London: Black Dog Publishing, Barbican Art Gallery, 1-904772-25-0, pg 36] In his essay Nuit Banai states that colour was Klein’s empire, and that for him colour itself was a material that undermined the ‘purity and intrinsic unity of forms’ that had dominated modernist practice and ‘his aesthetic approach and discourse accentuates the dissolution of forms’. [Jane Alison, pg 36] In this desire to give colour a physical form I see similarities with James Turrell whose aim is to give that same physicality to light, coloured light.

An in Sculpture ...

Ancient sculpture was frequently painted, but these decorations have long since been eroded and play no part in our modern day appreciation of them. The material is key to the form of the sculpture – the hardness of the stone dictated the method of carving, and the tools available to shape wood dictate the primitive or otherwise finish to, say, African carvings.

How significant is colour to Brancusi, or Rodin, or Henry Moore? My feeling is that the natural colour of the material used is important but that to paint them would not have been a consideration.

Donald Judd, on the other hand, relies very much on colour – for him the repetitive colour and form are equal in importance and ‘material, space and colour are the main aspects of visual art’. [Jane Alison, pg 100]

How do we decide which is most important to Anish Kapoor? His early work comprises ‘wall and floor based sculptures that blur the boundaries between sculpture and painting and are characterised by the use of pure pigment.’ [Jane Alison, pg 106] The vivid primaries are stunning in their simplicity and make me think of Kandinsky’s correlation of basic colours and basic forms, ‘A triangle filled with yellow, a circle with blue, a square with green, again a triangle with green, a circle with yellow, a square with blue and so on – these are all quite different beings and produce quite different effects.’ [Karl Gerstner, The Forms of Color, 1986, Cambridge Massachusetts and London: The MIT Press, 0-262-07100-2, pg 110]

In Drawing ...

A look at some of the great masters’ drawings show that colour is used sparingly – perhaps the addition of red chalk (Michelangelo, Da Vinci) or the use of painted pink paper (Holbein, the Younger). Some of this restraint is owing to the limited materials available – not for them the range of pastels and coloured pencils that we have access to. However, even with the plethora of coloured media that we have today some of the best drawings are in black and white, or black, white and one other colour. [examples from Vitamin D]

Drawings are often spontaneous and not generally in colour. Expression relies on the mark making – the use of line, form and chiaroscuro. Nowadays there can be confusion between what is drawing and what is painting – for many people the distinction would be the addition of colour, especially when this is through the use of paint!

In Architecture ...

It seems sensible to say that in architecture form must dominate colour – after all the space within a building dictates how it is used, enjoyed and appreciated. The awesome space of somewhere like the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern does not need colour to impress. Space within a church or cathedral likewise does not rely on colour for the spiritual feeling it instils in visitors, or does it?

Stained glass windows cast wonderful colours over the internal spaces of public buildings, especially churches. The glow from these on a sunny day is extremely uplifting and must have a powerful effect on everyone.’The connection of color with light and brilliance suggests a direct link with divine revelation …. “What is more beautiful than light,” said Hugo of St Victor, “which , itself colorless, nonetheless brings out clearly the color of all things?”’. [Pleij, pg 13]

Additionally the interior of medieval churches were often painted – every surface was covered with bright designs. Even in antiquity the public buildings were coloured – the Parthenon ‘in its heyday this pre-eminent symbol of venerable antiquity was not white but blue.’ [Pleij pg 90] Unless the colour comes from the material itself it will, of course, fade over time, even now.

With few exceptions the exteriors of buildings are still limited in their colour – often being designed to blend in with the environment rather than stand out from it, and yet choosing a complementary colour can create a much more pleasing sight than one where purely harmonious colours are chosen.

Hundertwasser notably used bright colour blocks and even Frank Gehry, better known for his striking monochromatic buildings such as the Guggenhiem Museum in Bilbao, has more recently used vibrant colour on the Puente de Vida (Bridge of Life), a new national museum in Panama.

In Fashion ...

Clothing today totally embraces colour – fashion trends largely dictate what is sold from one season to the next, but there has never been a greater range of colours available, from traditional brights to metallic fabrics and even fluorescent hues.

The manufacture of chemical dyes has revolutionised the fashion industry. ‘The Colour Index, a professional color specification list, includes over 8000 dyes classified by chemical structure, properties, and applications (not all of which fall into the visual arts).’ [Paul Zelanski and Mary Pat Fisher, pg 75] Where once a colour was too precious for widespread use, now even the cheapest of garments are available in it.

But let’s step back to medieval times – Pleij claims, ‘Colors obviously played a much more important role in the Middle Ages than they do now….color mania swept through medieval Europe. Everything – but everything – had to be colored…This color craze did not involve subdued colors that suited the materials in question but rather the most colourful and contrasting combinations possible.’ [Herman Pleij, pg 5] Of course it was only the well to do that could afford brightly coloured clothes; vivid scarlets and crimsons were much coveted because they were obtained from snails and worms and were very rare. The drab clothes of the poor were made more obvious by the contrast with the striking robes of the rich and there was much resentment and jealousy. Perhaps for this reason the church began to blame the devil for ‘this colourful distortion of Creation’, [Pleij, pg 6] and at the end of the Middle Ages bright colours had come to ‘represent earthly pleasures, which every civilized, God-fearing person was supposed to avoid’. [Pleij, pg 6] Blue came instead to symbolise heaven and together with black became the fashionable colours expressing, ‘earthly abnegation, extreme asceticism, deep sorrow, and supreme humility.’ [Pleij, pg 6]

But what of antiquity? Pleij again claims that the Greeks and Romans wore brightly coloured clothes, not the white robes that we associate with them. In Ancient China, ‘Stringent rules are made for the color of ancient dress and adornment. Yellow is the most valuable color as a symbol of center. Green, red, white and black symbolize the East, the South, the West and the North respectively. Green, red, black, white and yellow are pure colors applied by the emperors and officials. The common people could only apply the secondary colors. With the development of the society, the colors of the dress, which are more harmonious and form a partial contrast, replace that of remote ages, which was very simple. These changes make the dress and adornment splendid.’ [http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/01780/clothing/index.htm, accessed 10 April 2007]

Modern methods of forensic photography allow archaeologists to see that ancient robes, from all continents, were dyed rather than the colour of natural fibres. [http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-02/osu-fpb020707.php, accessed on 10 April, 2007] In the ancient world the status and wealth of the wearer dictated the colour of his clothes as much as fashion, as did the cultural history and prevalent religion.

In Interior Design ...

As we have already seen colour existed in all materials from ancient times, through the Middle Ages and again in present day. The interiors of public buildings have always been very colourful, although variable depending upon trends and personal taste as well as the availability of paints and fabric dyes.

All paints and dyes fade over time, and this was especially true when the egg tempera paints were the only ones available. Today we repaint and refurbish with alarming regularity so that interiors never truly fade.

In some countries it is the custom to paint doors and window frames but not walls – often to maximise the amount of light entering and being reflected around the building.

The form of furnishings also changes over different eras but it remains the fact that we need a bed of some sort to sleep on, a table to eat at and chairs to sit on, with varying degrees of comfort. The colour of these furnishings and interiors can be vital in creating a feeling of health and wellbeing, but too often this is ignored. Much of Hilary Dalke’s work is in designing interiors that create an environment conducive to its purpose and the wellbeing of those who use them, notably she has worked in prisons and hospitals to improve the health of those incarcerated there.

In Product Design ...

Manufactured products, whether a handmade axe from prehistoric times or a modern kitchen appliance depend heavily upon form and a product is no good for its purpose if it merely looks good. Product design in recent years has relied more on colour than previously but, for example, is the colour of a fridge significant? Or is it more important that the size and shape is calculated to fit into the allotted space? Yes we have a choice of colour with appliances today, but I feel it is impossible to claim colour is more important than form.

Let’s consider toys – colours are all pervasive – the theory being that babies/children respond to bright colour [BBC News Babies have favourite colours by Michelle Roberts, 8 May 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4474725.stm accessed 12 March 2007] Yet the form of duplo or lego is vital to its purpose of fitting the pieces together in order to build with it. The experience of touch is so important to a child’s learning, and the form of toys is central to that experience.

Whilst the model of a car is all important, colour has some relevance too. In Henry Ford’s time colour was irrelevant because the extra expense of manufacture using colour led him to limit the choice to black, black or black. But today colour helps to differentiate one car from another and interestingly blue cars are more often involved in minor scrapes, owing to their lack of visibility. [Hilary Dalke, Article Blue rinse? 21/3/2005 featured on the Facilities-UK website http://www.facilities-uk.co.uk/ , accessed 12 March 2007]

In Publishing – books and press ...

Printing both in books and the press is still predominantly in black and white since that is the favoured vehicle for text and most books and newspapers are concerned with communicating the written word.

Comic strips, magazines and children’s books are obvious exceptions to this. To a lesser extent so are those books that deal with fine art and topics such as interior design, where a significant proportion of the book is devoted to images.

The book form is still significant because we enjoy the experience of reading whilst sitting comfortably, although so much textual information is now disseminated on the internet that people have been announcing the end of the book as we know it for a few years now. Personally I hope this turns out not to be the case, but we cannot anticipate all the changes that technology will bring in the future. 3D projections of images into the space before our eyes accompanied by spoken text may become the norm.

In Photography/printmaking ...

It is hardly fair to put printmaking together with photography but I do so because the origins of both were in black and white versions. The first camera was ‘invented’ in fifth century BC when the Chinese philosopher Mo-tzu observed that an inverted image of the scene outside a darkened room was formed when light travelled through a small hole in the wall: perhaps the first recorded pin-hole camera. The same technique, or camera obscura, was used by artists during the Renaissance as David Hockney has shown in his book, Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, [2001, London: Thames & Hudson Ltd, 0-500-28638-8].

Today colour film technology has given way to digital photography and images are archived on computer storage media. Digital images are displayed on screen and printed using computerised printers. The use of filters and variations in exposure time etc are used because ‘sometimes the artist’s purposed are better served by distortion of the colors of the original image.’ [Paul Zelanski and Mary Pat Fisher, pg 73]

The Chinese invented ‘a type of woodblock printing six centuries before anything of its kind was in use in the West’, and the art of printing spread to Korea and Japan as Buddhism spread over the Far East. ‘Although only samurai could afford to commission the splendid gold-ground folding screens and decorated wooden panels made in this period (1600 onwards), the new middle class could buy woodblock prints, which were cheaper, because they were produced in multiple editions.’ [Brigitte Govignon, The Beginner’s Guide to Art, 1998, New York: Harry N Abrams Inc, 0-8109-4002-7, pg128] Printing techniques continued to develop in Japan: initially black and white prints were coloured by hand, but around 1760 Harunobu introduced the colour print. For each colour a different block was created and each block was printed in turn, with very precise alignment required. The resulting woodblock prints were used for many purposes – book illustration, individual prints or sets of prints and, as we saw at the Victoria and Albert Museum, fans. [Talk from Dr Rupert Faulkener, 21 February 2007] Japanese art is very stylised – the flat forms being shaped to produce the most harmonious composition, and colours chosen to complement this. The importance of form is apparent in black and white reproductions of Hokusai’s drawings – Hokusai who became almost synonymous with Japanese art in the west. I think it amusing that the ‘Floating World’ images of everyday events were ‘anathema to all Japanese connoisseurs of fine art … (and) quite unrepresentative of all that they accepted as most admirable in that art.’ [J Hillier, Hokusai Drawings , 1966, London: Paidon Press Ltd, pg 1]

Printing in the west developed somewhat later than in China but became a very popular medium, especially for book illustration, where black and white reproductions were common and colour plates only added much later. Books today have colour images interleaved with text whereas they were previously collected in a series of plates in one section of the book. Advancements in printing techniques have made colour printing all pervasive, but is it essential?

In Film and television ...

Like photography film and television were both initially limited to black and white. In the late 19th century Georges Méliés was experimenting with hand-tinting individual frames, but the first film shot in full technicolour was ‘Becky Sharp’ produced in 1935. ‘Colour was an expensive luxury, and many productions could afford to use it only in brief segments’ [Fraser and Banks, pg 94], but improvements in film and now digital technology meant that the use of colour became widespread.

Now that colour is the norm it is sometimes used sparingly for particular effect, such as in ‘Schindler’s List’ (1993) where Steven Spielberg used only red in an especially memorable scene. In ‘The Wizard of Oz’ the black and white world of Kansas is replaced by the vivid coloured scenes of Oz. And in ‘Pleasantville’ (1998), ‘The world gradually turns to colour, as feeling and passion trickle and then flood into the towns-peoples’ lives.’ [Batchelor, pg 68]

Oskar Fischinger’s 35mm films are abstract animations and synaesthetic responses to sound. Fischinger and Wassily Kandinsky had much in common – each was aware of and appreciated the other’s work. Colour and form can be said to be the subject of Fischinger’s work(circa 1935), ‘these lozenges, rectangles and circles spin away, shape-shifting into triangles and spirals, curves and lines, mutating their colours and forming new combinations’.

Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski made the ‘Three Colours’ trilogy (1993-5), each film named after a colour of the French flag, Blue, White and Red, which dealt with the three French Revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. In this case the reference to colour is symbolic and conceptual rather than physical.

The Beatles’ film ‘Yellow Submarine’ (1968) was a feast of psychedelic images with animation and colours reputedly showing the heightened colour awareness of those under the influence of drugs.

In Food ...

One would think that the primary factor in food is that it should taste good. Of course new things often taste unpleasant purely because we are not used to the flavour. Texture of food is also key to enjoying it. Additionally colour is a very strong factor in appreciation of different foods.

Let’s consider an apple – spherical in form, crunchy texture, sweet (or tart) flavour, and can be red or green. Which factor is most significant here? One would think that colour is perhaps the least critical in this case but there is, I am told by a friend, a particular red that is acceptable to Marks & Spencer’s food quality assurance, and all other apples are discarded. [This has been hard to substantiate but I like it so I left it in!]

Chefs, celebrity and otherwise, endeavour to display food in as tempting a way as possible, aiming to have at least three different colours on each plate. There have been many experiments with differently-coloured foods – I remember a restaurant opening in the 70s and serving blue eggs etc – but they invariably fail because we have expectations that certain foods will be a particular colour and we dislike them if they are not.

There are very few naturally occurring blue foods, blueberries are the only ones I can think of. Blue food can even make you ill, ’a group of young children taking part in a test with dyed vegetables became decidedly ill after eating harmless, blue-colored potatoes.’ [Psychology Today, Dec 1985, Maryon Tysoe, What’s wrong with blue potatoes – color preferences, www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1175/is_v19/ai_4039635 , accessed 12 March 2007] ‘Of all the colors in the spectrum, blue is an appetite suppressant.’ [Color Matters website, http://www.colormatters.com/appmatters.html,%20accessed%2012%20March%202007]

The latter article goes on to say that when subjects (in a trial) are offered food in the dark they are deprived of an essential factor in eating – the appearance of food. ‘Colors are significant and almost universally it is difficult to get a consumer to try a blue-coloured food.’

In Signs and Symbols ...

Symbols and signs have become the main method of communication in environments where language alone is insufficient, for example at airports or on the roads.

Colours are chosen both for emotional/psychological associations and legibility, for example yellow on black is the most clearly read combination. However, this changes in different environments and at different times of day – yellow is the most visible colour at midday, whilst blue is the most visible in the late afternoon, early evening. [Hilary Dalke, lecture 28 April 2007]
The simple forms of signs and symbols have been successively refined until they are universally recognisable. Just how much is attributable to shape and how much to colour is hard to say, but what is certain is that these symbols in black and white would completely lose their clarity.

Similarly flags are universal symbols of nationality and their colour is often historical, and runs through many aspects of the culture, for example the team colours in national sporting uniforms.

In Advertising and packaging ...

The choice of colours in product packaging and advertising is vital in creating brand recognition and loyalty. No product shows this more than coca-cola with its distinctive red and white logo and packaging. So strong was the coca-cola brand that Santa Claus put on a red coat instead of his original green one [Fraser and Banks, pg 13]. But it would be wrong to think that colour is the only factor in the coca-cola brand: the shape of the bottle is also iconic and, unlike the colour of the logo, it can be ‘owned’ or patented.

Virgin uses similar colours for its logo, also drawing on the psychology of colour to ‘impact on public perception… Advertising across all forms of media relies heavily on colour in order to get its message across… the use of colour may be guided by psychological subtlety rather than the quest for maximum impact’. [Fraser and Banks, pg 142]

Of course colour has only become important in packaging since the advent of cheap colour printing. Prior to this product packaging was very utilitarian, its primary purpose was to protect the product during transit and use. The plethora of products in the marketplace today is totally different from the situation prior to the 1950s when many fewer products were available and the market for them was much smaller. In recent years it has become ever more important to distinguish one product from another both by advertising slogans/messages and by visual branding.

When deciding on the cover for a book or magazine the publisher recognises colour ‘as a major factor in the selling power of covers…. A cover blocked in a single colour is always a sure seller’, perhaps because its simplicity makes it stand out from other in a busy newsstand. [Fraser and Banks, pg 122] But, ‘On the newsstand no-one can hear your scream, the brightest of colours won’t get you noticed unless you use it well. [Fraser and Banks, pg 127]

In Installations inc Colour & Light ...

Something close to my own heart is the use of colour and light in artwork, often installations such as Batchelor’s work or that of James Turrell who recently had an exhibition at the Louise T Blouin Institute in Ladbroke Grove. When I have looked at works involving light I have identified 4 aspects that differentiate different works:

Reflection – light falling upon a surface and being reflected such as Richard Wilson’s 20:50 – an installation of sump oil where the form – the smooth tension of the reflective surface – is essential in the work.
Projection – where a light source is projected towards an object such as Miss Understood and Mr Meanor, and therefore projected away from the viewer and consequently, for me at least, clever but not so moving. This work is an example of the form being much more important than the colour since the projected shape is a silhouette.
Light passing through – where light from the sun or an artificial light source passes through a substance eg stained glass, where colour is the chief factor.
Radiating light – I shall use this word instead of emanating which may have other connotations and I mean it to refer to those works with an integral light source such as David Batchelor’s Candela 3 or Dan Flavin’s fluorescent tubes.

For me the important factor is to achieve GLOW so that the viewer basks in light emitted, refracted or reflected from the work. Then the viewer is immersed in the work and feels affected by it. Nothing does this more strongly than stained glass with sunlight streaming through. No wonder churches instil awe and spirituality with such powerful colour lighting large, cool and otherwise gloomy interiors.

The ‘Colourscape’ experience invites visitors to roam through tunnels of different coloured light and observe the changes as you pass. People find it inspiring, disorientating but never boring.


Conclusion

So having worked through these rounds methodically in my attempt to quantify something which really refuses to be bound and limited in this way my feeling is that Form just wins over Colour.

Perhaps David Batchelor was right all along. But I interpret this as a desire to use colour, lots of it, wisely – using it carefully to enhance its effect, rather than cover every surface with such vivid colour that it becomes, in effect, colourless. Just as white space on a page is conducive to easy reading, so the natural colours of the earth, stone and untreated cottons etc are a foil to vivid hues, allowing them to maintain their power and not become lost in a cacophony of colour that would drown out them all, like the magazine covers on a newsstand.

Batchelor reports Faber Birren, author of Color and Human Response as saying, ‘Youngsters are more responsive to color than to form,’ [quoted in Chromophobia, pg 79] and that as we age we lose our affection for colour. It is certainly true that older people seem to have a predisposition to wearing beige and grey – perhaps because lilacs appear grey in old age? [Hilary Dalke, lecture 28 March] The intensity of colour seems to be used as a measure or symbol for how far away from grey/order and boredom we are. At the end of his book Batchelor sounds disillusioned and yet his work is pure defiance of subdued refinement – for example Candela 3, made out of 450 recycled, industrial, plastic bottles each lit with an ordinary, low wattage light bulb glowing in a way reminiscent to me of stained glass. Hanging in the atrium of the Bloomberg Space it dominated the building, but did not fight with it since the building is made up of stone, glass and mainly decorated in pale neutral colours.

I personally do not think we have Chromophobia, but rather a desire for visual rest that bright colours cannot give us. Neither is white, especially in excess, a restful colour: in my opinion it is very harsh on the senses. One of my firmly held beliefs is that the environment directly affects our health and wellbeing and that by manipulating our environment we can improve our wellbeing. To be in completely white surroundings, as Batchelor recounts at the start of his book, would be insufferable and damaging to wellbeing, but equally to be enveloped in vivid colour could be harmful – a bright orange would be so ‘activating’ that we might never feel at ease.

So I arrive, at least temporarily in my quest to understand colour, at the common sense belief that we are not chromophobic so much as careful with colour, and that is no bad thing.

Mixing Light a la Seurat?

Following a talk by Hilary Dalke I have been wondering what the effect of multiple small light 'spots' of enclosed colour would be from a distance. Also tubes of different coloured light laid side by side...

Caroline asked if multiple light sources side by side would appear white? This was in response to Hilary's description of her own early paintings where she ruled coloured lines close together that, from a distance, appeared brown - an undulating mass of brown. This effect occurred because mixed primary pigments always appear brown. Simply put, when the brain sees multiple colours it 'mixes' them and perceives the resulting colour.

So would interleaved primary light sources appear white? Red, green and blue light make white light. This is easy to simulate, and stage lighting relies heavily on the effects caused by mixing in this way.

But laying different coloured lights side by side is rather different. Where the coloured glow from one light overlaps with the glow from another there is a mixing of light and another colour is seen. But would red, green and blue lights or light sources become one white mass?

The effect would be different if the light sources were enclosed than if the light were allowed to spread out over the juxtaposed lights. My feeling is that in the first case we would not perceive white light, but that we possibly would in the second. The only way to find out is to try it...