This sharply defined working of individual colours is the basis
on which various values can be built up in harmony. Pictures will
come to be painted--veritable artistic arrangements, planned in
shades of one colour chosen according to artistic feeling. The
carrying out of one colour, the binding together and admixture of
two related colours, are the foundations of most coloured
harmonies. From what has been said above about colour working,
from the fact that we live in a time of questioning, experiment
and contradiction, we can draw the easy conclusion that for a
harmonization on the basis of individual colours our age is
especially unsuitable. Perhaps with envy and with a mournful
sympathy we listen to the music of Mozart. It acts as a welcome
pause in the turmoil of our inner life, as a consolation and as a
hope, but we hear it as the echo of something from another age
long past and fundamentally strange to us. The strife of colours,
the sense of balance we have lost, tottering principles,
unexpected assaults, great questions, apparently useless
striving, storm and tempest, broken chains, antitheses and
contradictions, these make up our harmony. The composition
arising from this harmony is a mingling of colour and form each
with its separate existence, but each blended into a common life
which is called a picture by the force of the inner need. Only
these individual parts are vital. Everything else (such as
surrounding conditions) is subsidiary. The combination of two
colours is a logical outcome of modern conditions. The
combination of colours hitherto considered discordant, is merely
a further development. For example, the use, side by side, of red
and blue, colours in themselves of no physical relationship, but
from their very spiritual contrast of the strongest effect, is
one of the most frequent occurrences in modern choice of harmony.
[Footnote: Cf. Gauguin, Noa Noa, where the artist states his
disinclination when he first arrived in Tahiti to juxtapose red
and blue.] Harmony today rests chiefly on the principle of
contrast which has for all time been one of the most important
principles of art. But our contrast is an inner contrast which
stands alone and rejects the help (for that help would mean
destruction) of any other principles of harmony. It is
interesting to note that this very placing together of red and
blue was so beloved by the primitive both in Germany and Italy
that it has till today survived, principally in folk pictures of
religious subjects. One often sees in such pictures the Virgin in
a red gown and a blue cloak. It seems that the artists wished to
express the grace of heaven in terms of humanity, and humanity in
terms of heaven. Legitimate and illegitimate combinations of
colours, contrasts of various colours, the over-painting of one
colour with another, the definition of coloured surfaces by
boundaries of various forms, the overstepping of these
boundaries, the mingling and the sharp separation of surfaces,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account