COLOR THEORY

Color in Art

Color as Emotion

A knowledge of color theory helps us to express our feelings in an artwork. The language of color has even entered our vocabulary to help us describe our emotions. You can be ‘red’ with rage or ‘green’ with envy. We often speak of bright cheerful colors as well as sad or dull ones. A ‘grey’ day may be depressing and result in a feeling of the ‘blues’.
Sunflowers 1888 Vincent Van Gogh	The Tragedy 1903 Pablo Picasso
The paintings of Vincent Van Gogh show an instinctive understanding of color theory. In his 'Sunflowers' still life, he uses warm colors to create a feeling of hope and cheerfulness . On the other hand a more conscious use of color theory is found in the paintings of Pablo Picasso's 'blue period'. He chooses cool colors to evoke the chill of sadness and despair in 'The Tragedy', a typical subject from his work at this time.
The Pool of London 1906 André Derain
André Derain uses the conflict between warm and cool colors to express the noise and activity of this busy dockyard. He creates the illusion of depth in the painting by using stronger tones in the foreground which gradually become weaker towards the background. This organised arrangement of tones in a landscape is called Aerial Perspective. Derain was one of a group of artists who were nicknamed 'Les Fauves' (the wild beasts). This title was coined by a critic who was outraged by the bold colors in their art. The artistic establishment of the day were offended as they respected control and restraint in the use of color. However, the 'Fauves' believed that color had a direct link to your emotions and they loved to use it at the highest pitch possible. The function of color in their painting was not to describe their subject matter, but to express the artist's feelings about it. Their ideas liberated the use of color for future generations of artists and ultimately gave them the freedom to explore color as a subject in its own right.
Rainbox 2005 John MacTaggart
This work celebrates the joy of color as the subject matter of the picture. John MacTaggart uses a mixture of transparent and reflective color effects ranging across the spectrum to create an abstract image of jewel-like radiance.