The Science of Colour

I presented the society's illustrated lecture in July. The general consensus seemed to be that, if I chose something so complicated, I should provide the write up andillustrations too!

We looked at the nature of light and the spectrum seen in a rainbow or prism.  Newton's description of seven colours was a religious rather than a scientific statement. Most people see a continuously changing colour that ranges from red to blue with a hint of violet beyond blue, and do not feel the need to include indigo. Purple is not the same as violet and is not a colour in the spectrum. We see it only when there is a mixture of red and blue light. If we regard purple as a colour, we should logically also include white, grey and black as colours - after all you can buy them in pencils and paints. A colleague lent me some slides that illustrate types of colour blindness. A member of the audience amplified this with his own experiences of red-green colour blindness. You cannot beat a real witness account and I am grateful for his courage. He draws rather than paints.

Colour needs to be described in terms of hue, saturation and value. There are many ways of doing this. They allow some understanding of why mixing paints is difficult, and the concept of primary colours is not quite right. Similar models show how the range of colours that can be handled by cameras, computer screens, printers and the human eye vary. This is one reason why pictures of painting sometimes disappoint, and also makes it difficult to give a talk on colour using a computer display.

I ended with some demonstrations of optical effects that artists employ, which seemed to be what people enjoyed most. Some are reproduced on the back cover. The three grids of squares illustrate the Bezold effect. The reds and blues are the same in each case, but the introduction of a thin black border makes
the red and blue look darker, whereas a white border makes them appear brighter. The white, green and blue illustration was an idea of my own. These three rectangles have grey shading added with a very simple computer program. Everyone saw this as a white cylinder however, even though there are no ellipses at the top and bottom. This shows how our perception of colour is altered to create a sense of
form. The white is then known as the local colour of the object.

Researching this topic led me to some interesting books. The most practical for an artist is “Colour: How to Use Colour in Art and Design” by Edith Anderson Feisner. 2nd Edition pub Laurence King Publishing Ltd 2006. ISBN 1 85669 441 0. I also enjoyed “Colour:Art & Science” eds Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau pub
CUP 1995. ISBN 0 521 49645 4 hardback 0 521 49963 1 paperback. This is from a wide ranging series of lectures at Darwin College in Cambridge University with contributions from Bridget Riley and John Gage amongst others.

Anyone with internet access should visit www.handprint.com which contains one of the world's best references on all aspects of water colour painting including colour theory. The section on Shakespeare's sonnets is also good. Practical recipes for mixing colour, for inexperienced artists like me, are shown in the “Pocket Palette” series from Search Press. I own “The Oil Painters” version (Rosalind Cuthbert 2000, ISBN 0 85532 941 6) and “The Acrylic” version (Ian Siddaway 2002, ISBN 0 85532 997 1). There are several others.

Finally, I could not have given this talk without a modern projector and I am grateful to the society for purchasing one for this and future talks. I am particularly grateful to John Taphouse who put in much hard work on this and in solving the inevitable teething troubles.

Adrian Fowle

RA Summer Exhibition

Not one to be inspired to visit the mainstream exhibitions I paid my first visit to the RA Summer Exhibition in July. Overall impression was that you needed to do something weird and whacky to attract the selectors eye. This impression has been endorsed further by looking at Not the Summer Exhibition which indeed has more of what you would expect to see at an art exhibition. You can view this one on-line.

Yes there were some that were very clever, others that made your eyes jump, but none that would have enticed me to buy but then the friend I was with did purchase an etching. Copies of etchings, etc., were selling well.What caught my eye: Blutbld etching by Farah Syed, A Child is Born by Mary Cossey, this one had universal appeal and, much to my surprise, I was to see more of her work at Horniman’s just a couple of weeks later. Beans from Tanzania - oil on anel, by Margaret Foreman, Winter Hedge, thread, by Ann Ward, 2 by Leonard Rosoman RA, Storm from the Kitchen Window, pen,ink and crayon, Rams by Thicket, chalk and pastel by Diana Armfield RA, A View, oil on MDF, by Hannah Birkett, Leaf by Anne Kyyro Quinn, wool felt, Lost in Translation by Chuya Ikeda, mixed media, and the postcard colleges by David Mach RA, which were really
stunning and very clever.

Would I go again? Maybe.

Ann Holdway

The Madness of Art

We work in the dark
We do what we can
We give what we have
The rest is the madness of art.

These words (with my italics), formed in copper wire and displayed on the wall of  Room II at the RA Summer Exhibition, turned out to be significant in two ways. Firstly,  they were crafted into a lovely piece of artwork (Tom Phillips RA) forming shadows on  the wall behind and this was one of only a very few exhibits of which I could say,  “I really like that!” Secondly, they perhaps summarise this whole exhibition. 

We work in the dark

Yes, I can believe that a huge percentage of the artists represented here do just that!

We do what we can

Well, that’s just not enough!

We give what we have

ditto

The rest is the madness of art

Speaks for itself!

 To quote the friend I was with, ‘I’m shocked that everything is so shocking’’- and she  wasn’t just talking about the Tracey Emin room (shocking in lack of artistry as well  as content) - the whole exhibition felt like madness. Ok, there was, of course, some  lovely work if you looked hard for it. We all loved the blue egg and there were some other worthy pieces scattered around, but most of the sculpture was lumpy and  unbeautiful, the architecture room disappointed and the vast majority of the paintings  I considered indescribably awful both in execution and content. 

(What a relief it was to visit the Hammershoi exhibition immediately afterwards at the  same venue - calm, subdued, meditative and beautifully painted.) 

Then, on that same evening, there was the preview of an exhibition of students’ work  at the ‘Art for All’ studios. It was varied, imaginative, well painted and pleasing to the  eye. Thank goodness for the tutors there who develop our skills and draw out our  ideas (mad or not!) and thank goodness for art in Bromley – in this case better by far  than the summer exhibition!

Christine Richards

The RA Summer Exhibition 2008

Broadly speaking I found this year’s Summer Show at the RA to be disappointing but then, so have those of the last few years.  In my opinion there are too few works which demonstrate the artistic skills which are expected at such an  important national academic institution.  These are often easier to find in regular  exhibitions in the Mall Gallery.  Historically the RA was pilloried because it would  not accept “avant guarde” work, now it accepts too much!

Having said that, hidden amongst the big brash canvases shouting “look at me!”  there were quite a few works of quieter skill, some of which I would like to mention in case you missed them or have yet to pay a visit there. 

The Small Weston Room always contains a number of treasures - if you spend  enough time craning your neck to find them.   I ticked my catalogue against no.  310 - “Two Yellow Plums” by Ann Brains, 313 - “Birdbath with Foxgloves” by  John Boulden, 315 - “Driftwood Girl” in egg tempera by Benjamin Senior, 317 -  “Digging for Rainbows” another tempera painting by Peter Messer, and 333 -  “Brass Blow Torches” by Liam Thomson.  I went on to give approving ticks to nearly forty further paintings in this one room; these included “The Studio  Mantlepiece” by Peter Brown which I particularly liked.  My approbations were  more sparse as I passed through the rest of the show - but there were some  larger works which impressed me.  In the large gallery (III) I liked the very long  eye-catching “The Herbaceous Ground, Kew” by Adrian Berg.  In this large room  there were a few other works which caused me to linger not least the “Sketch for  a Large Painting in Four Parts” by Stephen Farthing - it would be good to see the  finished work.  It was also nice to see Mary Feddon, David Curtis, Stephen Gore  and Diana Armfield still exhibiting. 

With very few exceptions the sculpture did not excite.  For me the highlights were  Jeff Koon’s superb “Cracked Egg”, “Suburban Totem” by Ivor Abrahams, “Pour”  by Phillip King and James Butler’s small girl. How I missed the “Ping Pong Table”  by Ron Arad I do not know but I am told that its shape and mirror finished stainless steel would have wowed me had I not been looking so intently at the walls! I am not sure that the RA’s did it deliberately, but they left the best ‘til last. Room X redeemed my flagging opinion of the show.  Ken Howard, William Bowyer, and  Olwyn Bowey with their large oils saved the day - but there was one more treat -  hung in a position that would ensure that most visitors would pass it by - in the  exit lobby - were the two best watercolours in the exhibition - “Bonefacio” by  Carey Clarke and “Kirkdale” by Simon Palmer. 

To sum up - I wish there had been more work to excite me but it was still worth  the journey, I shall hope for more of the better things next year.

Pat Tucker

A Gem of a Gallery

All you have to do is to cross the Channel, either to Calais, or Dunkerque and then drive just across the Belgium border to Veurne where you turn left towards the sea  and in particular towards Koksijde.  There, down a narrow residential road - helpfully  called Delvaux Avenue, can be found a most unusual and rewarding gallery devoted  to the works of Paul Delvaux. 

Paul was a Belgian Surrealist, not so well-known in this country as his countryman  Magritte or Salvador Dali.  He did not distort his images like Dali neither did he go out  of his way to invent obvious inconsistences like Magritte; his scenes were invariably  of dreams set in accurately drawn, well composed settings resulting in paintings of  great serenity.  Most of his dreams seemed to include nude young women standing, unconcerned about their nakedness, in a building or landscape with equally unconcerned clothed men in attendance.  The other recurrent theme was, usually in the  background, a steam train.  It appears that his love of trains dated from his childhood  when he dreamt of being a station master when he grew up. 

As one approaches the gallery up the garden path the impression is that this is a  small house similar to all the others in the road.  Once inside everything is very  different - the galleries continue, one after another, mostly below the ground!   It is  the house where he lived and worked although he had another studio in Brussels.   He was acclaimed in Belgium during his long lifetime (he died at the age of 93), and was still alive and involved in the design of this gallery when it was opened in  the 1980's.   

It was a wonderful discovery and well worth the short diversion to this hidden treasure.        
 

Pat Tucker