The Senator's Question.
JLS
Subject: Re: Question
In article <3ie0qc$e...@hti.net>, wbr...@hti.net (The Senator) says:
> I have just about decided over the last year that it doesn't matter.
>COLOR is the most important thing.
I read one of your posts that contained this sentence in the wee hours
of the morning today. Now I cannot, for some reason, get my news
server to display your article so that I can respond to some of the
remarks you made. I remember it said that you were new to the
newsgroup scene, and you went on to say something about using oils
in preference to acrylics when trying to paint continuous blends.
First. Glad you joined the discussions here. Some of the other art forums
are: alt.artcom, alt. art.scene, alt.art. nomad, rec.arts.misc.
I wanted to expand on a remark made about colorists. Have you seen
work by Hans Hofmann (d. 1966)? I believe you said you are a realist
in your approach, and Hofmann was abstract. But Hoffman was a
highly respected professor of art (I think he taught at Yale, but don't
quote me). He had a very intellectual approach to color and
composition. I may be wrong, but I think it was Hofmann who
immortalized the phrase "push-pull" in reference to color interaction. I
am a representational artist myself, but nevertheless I find much in his
writings that are valid for me. Hoffman is widely quoted in many later
books on color theory. One such:
"The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through
the mystic realm of color. Our entire being is nourished by it. This
mystic quality of color should likewise find expression in a work of
art." (re: Exploring Color, by Nita Leland--an excellent student's
book).
There is another artist who I admire for his colorist approach to
representational subject matter, not necessarily for the work he
created, and that is Maxfield Parish. He is noted for the luminescence
of his paintings, which he achieved through a tedious procedure of
successive glazes in oils. I still hear people in the arts occasionally
refer to "Maxfield Parish skies." Parish would have loved having
acrylics available in his day. The fast drying time of acrylic glazes
would have solved his most worrisome problem--that of waiting for oil
glazes to dry between coats. If you ever get a chance to read a book
on his techniques, it can be rewarding, I think.
Yours representationally, >>>JLS<<<
Margery Cohen
> I wanted to expand on a remark made about colorists. Have you seen
> work by Hans Hofmann (d. 1966)? I believe you said you are a realist
> in your approach, and Hofmann was abstract. But Hoffman was a
> highly respected professor of art (I think he taught at Yale, but don't
> quote me). He had a very intellectual approach to color and
> composition. I may be wrong, but I think it was Hofmann who
> immortalized the phrase "push-pull" in reference to color interaction. I
> am a representational artist myself, but nevertheless I find much in his
> writings that are valid for me. Hoffman is widely quoted in many later
> books on color theory. One such:
> "The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through
> the mystic realm of color. Our entire being is nourished by it. This
> mystic quality of color should likewise find expression in a work of
> art." (re: Exploring Color, by Nita Leland--an excellent student's
> book).
I finally figured Hans Hoffman's paintings out. What he did was:
He painted a picture and blocked out the parts he didn't like with
brightly colored rectangles. I'm sure of it.
- Margery Cohen
--
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margery cohen mar...@netcom.com el cerrito, california
Schujac
>....By the term "push and pull" he advocated
>> and taught an approach to the use of color to create figure-
>> ground reversals, an ambiguous approach to pictorial space.
>> When two saturate colors are placed edge to edge, the one the
>> viewer focuses on will appear to advance toward the viewer. When
>> s/he shifts the focus to the next shape, that shape will then
>> appear to advance. This creates a series of shapes that move
>> back and forth in space, responding to the viewer's change in
>> view, as wind chimes respond to the wind. This is an attempt
>> to create a back and forth tension, rather than just a lateral
>> tension of shapes rocking against each other in pictorial space.
>Yow! That was interesting.. I've kinda known that in a vague intuitive
>way, but seeing it explained in that way really clarified the issue for
>me.. Write some more stuff like that again! And often!
Poetic too. But is it true?
Back there in time somewhere, when I was really
interested in the works of Hofmann, probably having seen something
of his for the first time, I failed to experience either "push" or "pull" while
viewing his work. I don't think that just
because one regurgitates what most landscape artists already knew,
and presents it as a new dictum for abstract artists, that it
necessarily works in practice. It may be that, whereas landscape
artists are able to diffuse and create subtle, atmospheric effects
to advantage, abstract artists have more difficulty simply because
of the brilliant hues, bold shapes, and un-familiar (to the viewer)
subject matter. By that I mean, when we look at a landscape that
uses the traditional color scheme--warms in foreground receding to
cools in background--we are looking at a scene that corresponds
to what we know of the physical world. When we look at a new work
of abstract art, we are first of all reacting to something that is
un-familiar, trying to "get it" so to speak.
I don't question that Hofmann was correct in his theory. I just think
that there is too much psychological baggage we all carry that
either aids and abets or interferes with our reactions to the un-familiar.
Anyone who has ever looked at photographic transparencies with
brilliant red or yellow objects in the picture has seen the
"push-pull" effect, or maybe "eye-popping" is more appropriate.
+++Schujac+++ Only God can make a tree--or a cactus.
Charles Eicher
sch...@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (Schujac) wrote:
> Poetic too. But is it true?
>
> Back there in time somewhere, when I was really
> interested in the works of Hofmann, probably having seen something
> of his for the first time, I failed to experience either "push" or
"pull" while
> viewing his work. I don't think that just
> because one regurgitates what most landscape artists already knew,
> and presents it as a new dictum for abstract artists, that it
> necessarily works in practice. It may be that, whereas landscape
> artists are able to diffuse and create subtle, atmospheric effects
> to advantage, abstract artists have more difficulty simply because
> of the brilliant hues, bold shapes, and un-familiar (to the viewer)
> subject matter. By that I mean, when we look at a landscape that
> uses the traditional color scheme--warms in foreground receding to
> cools in background--we are looking at a scene that corresponds
> to what we know of the physical world. When we look at a new work
> of abstract art, we are first of all reacting to something that is
> un-familiar, trying to "get it" so to speak.
I think you're onto something there, but sorta backwards.. By now, these
abstraction color schemes are almost 'traditional' and certainly they
don't have as much 'push-pull' impact as they would have when Hoffman was
first doing this..
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Charles Eicher
cei...@netins.net
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