Turning Shades Into Emotions and Hues Into Deep Memories
Tags: Painting, Art, Creativity, History, Colors

Turning Shades Into Emotions and Hues Into Deep Memories

The use of color and availability of palette evolved from capturing a subject to evoking a lively scene to stirring emotions and creativity.

Bianca Spaggiari /MutualArt

Werner’s full colors chart

The secret life of colors is as complex as science, and, being an intangible element, it is intricate yet fascinating, and there is much to write and learn about all their mesmerizing aspects. Central to the topic are the differences in use of color between ancient and modern or contemporary art, especially if linked to the multiple variations in the applications of similar techniques and methods that have been applied through centuries, shifting the perception of color for the viewership. Another major factor in studying colors is the growing and unfolding awareness over the centuries of colors’ ability to play a role in our personal state of well-being and how by looking at a harmonious mixture of color tempera on canvas it can easily improve, or at least alter. It is thus fascinating to explore the power of color in accelerating emotional connectivity with an artwork.

In line with the historical period the artworks belong to, the way we perceive the colors changes. This mainly has to do with the technique applied to carry the works to completion. As opposed to modern and contemporary paintings, classical paintings very often engaged with the “indirect” technique. This consisted of a combination of three or even more layers on the canvas, so that what the viewer sees is never a single stratum, which to some extent is discernible in a few spots on the canvas. Usually these layers are grounded in the “imprimatura,” which is the first image on the face of the painting. Then, a soft wash of oil color establishes the middle layer and tone of the painting. Here the trick was to use a dark yet slightly transparent color — for instance Terra di Siena (or burnt Sienna) — so the surface of the painting appears to sparkle softly and acquires dimension. Third and last usually consists of opaque hues, and onto this layer the painter shaped the final subject matter: the sitters and their details. This last layer, however, may be single or a many transparent glazes.

Rembrandt, Portrait of The Artist, Half-Length, Wearing a Ruff And a Black Hat, 1350, 83 × 98 × 22 Cm, Private Collection © Courtesy of Sotheby’s, London

Beginning with the impressionists, pioneers of alternativity, the “indirect” painting technique was replaced by the “direct” one. In the use of the direct technique most of the colors are opaque, no longer transparent as opposed to old masters’. This works especially well when painting natural environments and outdoor spaces, often flooded with light and bright tones, because the observed color bounces directly off the surface, and if there are underlayers, these have been completely covered up. Bearing in mind the different availability of colors palettes, it allowed radically different outcomes. As a result, towards the twentieth century color had been studied and applied on canvas in all its abstractions, but preserved its meaningful essence.

Claude Monet, Haystack (Sunset), oil on canvas, 1891, 73.3 x 92.7 cm, © Courtesy of the Juliana Cheney Edwards Collection, Fine Art Museum, Boston

However assertive, Claude Monet’s “Haystacks” were often defined as merely empathic and visually pleasant, ignoring why they are so attractive. Recent scholars proved that the artist was interested in the meaning as much as in the canvas’ texture, and, to this extent, haystacks are genuine symbols of the land’s fertility and prosperity. Upon the viewer, however, the image has an overall visual effect, reminding him of nature and the constant and everchanging colors of a sunset. To this end, the mind is challenged to reach beyond the horizon and immerses himself in the landscape by imagining what it would be like to live in that precise moment and how would it feel. The mind is suddenly brought there.

Mark Rothko, Untitled (Red, Orange), Oil on canvas, 1968, 233 x 176 cm, © Fondation Beyeler, Basel

In more recent years, Mark Rothko has been widely associated with an unprecedent use of color due to his searching canvases consisting of arrangements of square or rectangular shapes outlined in bright and vivid hues. The way Rothko experimented with color in his paintings was based on looking at how the colors, shapes, and backgrounds interact with one another, particularly around the edges. Thus, in his oeuvre, the soft and brushy borders embracing color fields create a mood, while the sharper, straighter lines of the central forms prompt another. Consistent juxtapositions of similar or divergent nuances — shades of deep blue against dark purple or a bright red against brown — provoke disparate emotional responses. For instance, these works are proven to unlock power and inebriate the viewer with energy. The Independent also defined Rothko as the most “wept-over” artist for his canvases’ ability to stir up strong emotions and awe in the viewership through the infinite use of absolute colors. The artist himself once declared: “I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions, and the fact that lots of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I communicate those basic human emotions. The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.”

Mark Rothko, №16, (Red, White and Brown), Oil on canvas, 1957, 271 x 298 cm, © Kunstmuseum Basel.

Maybe as powerful as Rothko’s is the use of color in Bridget Riley’s works. Well known since the mid-nineties, her oeuvre has been defined as “Op-Art”, optical art, as she experiments with optical phenomena. Her use of palettes produces a vibrant dynamism on the surface, the artist defining her works to be “alive.” As opposed to Rothko, Riley’s works are meant to amend, cure and soothe. The eyes should almost be caressed by staring at Riley’s intricate stripes, dots, or waves of hues. Colors seem to come alive and the eyes settle in their rhythm. Indeed, Riley’s palette is often soft and controlled, pale and pastel, or bright yet calm.

Bridget Riley, Cool Edge, oil on linen, 1982, 142 x 120.6 cm, © British Airways Collection, London

Rothko and Riley’s artworks are proof of how effective colors’ can be, despite the artwork’s abstractness and lack of a figurative subject matter. As a result, color is a meaningful and emotional means and artists consistently engaged, and still do, with its veiled power to get to the wider viewership and attract emotional connectivity. Successful artists know how to use color to their advantage, by creating the unforeseen.

The broad cadence of color, if applied with sensitivity and understanding, turn shades into emotions and hues into deep memories. In this way, artworks acquire more than just dimensionality. Eventually, when in touch with an audience, they come to possess an emotional personality of their own.