Monday, November 23, 2009

Do Colours Stay at Home?



Emily Carr, Above the Gravel Pit.

Sometimes it leads me to wonder - do colours stay where they belong?

Scientifically speaking colours are nothing more then a spectrum of light waves - frequencies of vibration of electro magnetic waves which are given life by our atmosphere. So, when you look at yellow tulip petals, you see subtle shifts in frequencies of light vibrations. Such being the case....then the yellowness of tulip flowers are not properites of the flower - they are vibrations of light which reflect from the flower. Follow my drift?

Now, lets step out onto a limb. Have you ever looked at a coloured object and had the feeling that you were looking at the colours of that object, surrounding it?

When artists unify their picture by spreading distinct colours around, are they acknowledging that frequencies of light, deflect and bounce?

Do artists see this?

I spend a lot of time in the mountains, and when you become attuned to colour, it is easy to see the light blue of the sky, literally washing down from the sky into the valley below.

Recognition of this quality of light is built into the craft of many if not most, painters.

Do colours migrate? It would seem that most artists would think so.

reference: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hue
Posted by at
Labels: ,

1 comment:

  1. DianaNovember 24, 2009 at 9:37 p.m.

    Dazzling, Win! I had no idea Emily Carr had ever painted a sky like this! It looks like undulating satin -- really lovely.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for posting your comments.
ATTENTION SPAMMERS: Comments with links to other websites, will not be accepted.

A message for anonymous posters: Comments will be accepted provided they are thoughtful and articulate.

Reciprocating comments between posters will not be accepted. Sorry - I have no intention of giving readers the opportunity to engage in flame wars. It won't happen.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Fredericks-Artworks Blog, copying policy


The Canadian Copyright act, section 29 reports on fairdealing, that it is not an infringement to reproduce someone else's work for research, study, criticism, review or to report. Which pretty much sums up what this site is about. All content sources, be they artists, printed references, and website url's are respectfully identified on this site. http://http//www.canlii.org/en/ca/laws/stat/rsc-1985-c-c-42/latest/rsc-1985-c-c-42.html

Mission Statement
A Portrait of the Visual Arts in Canada, is intended to celebrate the richness of Canada's visual arts, and to promote the arts in Canada.

Statement of Intent
I make every effort to credit the sources of information used in this blog and to obtain the permission and cooperation of all the works presented by living artists. I try, as much as possible to use works from public sources eg. national and provincial collections, of deceased artists. If for any reason, any artist disapproves of anything written about them or their work the artist is encouraged to request withdrawal of the content.