Elements of Art: Color | KQED Arts

Summary

The video explores how color plays a pivotal role in art, emphasizing its use by artists like color field painters of the 1950s and '60s. These artists embraced the flat, two-dimensional nature of the canvas and used large-scale works with minimal colors to highlight the beauty of color itself. The video delves into color theory, explaining primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, as well as concepts like tint, shade, and tone. It also touches on how color temperature affects mood and interpretation, offering insights for understanding and creating art.

Takeaways

• 🎨 Representational art attempts to realistically mimic the world using three-dimensional space.
• 🖼️ Color field painters from the 1950s and '60s emphasized the flat, two-dimensional nature of the canvas.
• 🌈 Their large-scale works often used only one or two colors and did not represent the outside world.
• 🟦 Color was the main subject in their work, with no need for it to symbolize anything else.
• 🎨 Color is one of the seven elements of art, along with line, shape, form, texture, value, and space.
• 💡 We perceive color based on the light reflected off an object, with red, yellow, and blue being primary colors.
• 🔵 Secondary colors like green, orange, and violet are created by mixing primary colors.
• 🎨 Tertiary colors result from mixing primary and secondary colors, and individual colors can be altered by tinting, shading, and toning.
• 🎨 A monochromatic color scheme consists of tints, shades, and tones of a single color.
• 🔥 Warm colors (reds, oranges, yellows) evoke feelings of warmth, while cool colors (blues, greens, violets) are associated with calm and overcast days.

Q & A

What is the main difference between representational art and color field painting?

Representational art attempts to realistically portray the world by mimicking three-dimensional space and rendering objects faithfully, while color field painting emphasizes the flat, two-dimensional nature of the canvas, focusing on large-scale areas of color rather than representing the outside world.

Why did color field painters of the 1950s and '60s use large-scale paintings with only one or two colors?

They wanted to reinforce the idea that the painted canvas is a flat, two-dimensional space, and their use of bold, bright colors wasn't meant to represent anything else, but to make color itself the subject of the painting.

What are the seven elements of art mentioned in the script?

The seven elements of art are color, line, shape, form, texture, value, and space.

How do we perceive the color of an object according to the script?

When light hits an object, some of it is absorbed, and some is reflected, depending on the object's material. The light that is reflected is what we perceive as the object’s color.

What are the primary colors, and why are they significant?

Red, yellow, and blue are primary colors because they cannot be made by mixing other colors. They are significant because all other hues can be created by mixing them.

How are secondary colors created?

Secondary colors—green, orange, and violet—are created by mixing two primary colors together in equal amounts.

What is the difference between a tint, a shade, and a tone?

A tint is created by adding white to a color, a shade by adding black, and a tone by adding both black and white to a color.

What is a monochromatic color scheme?

A monochromatic color scheme is when a work of art uses tints, shades, and tones of only one color.

What does the script suggest about how artists personalize their work?

Artists personalize their work by creating their own unique colors, tints, shades, and tones, giving their art a distinct visual identity.

How are warm and cool colors typically categorized, and what associations do they evoke?

Warm colors like reds, oranges, and yellows are associated with warmth, such as sunny days, while cool colors like blues, violets, and greens evoke cooler associations, such as overcast or rainy days.