How has the experience and experimentation of artists influenced our understanding of colour and the development of a theory of ‘colour vision’?
Issac Newton, mathematically & scientifically driven, was credited in the 1600’s for his discovery that white light could be broken down through a prism into a spectrum of ranging colours (essentially, ROYGBIV). This great discovery highly impacted artists in regards to their work as well our own understanding of colour.
Artists that came about after Newton’s realization of colour, came in attempt to further understand the essential idea of colour. Artist Phillip Otto Runge (1777 - 1810), further investigated the understanding of colour and came to develop a colour sphere (3-dimensional) in comparison to Newton's 2-dimensional colour wheel. Runge's colour sphere concentrated on the effect of light and shadow on colour. Scientist and poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1949 – 1832), believed that the eye was a “sufficient tool for the study of colour” Goethe was interested in Newton’s discovery but opposed his stance wherein "Newton's error... was trusting maths over the sensations of the eye". The 19th century is where the impressionist movement was identified; impressionist painters highly regarded time and movement into their paintings as well as the representation of light. Post-impressionist (20th century) painters such as Vincent Van Gogh had a similar style but used his own perception of light and colour and departed from the supposed reality and focused on the psychological/emotional perception of it. Artist JWM Turner (1775 – 1851) perceived colour as revealing the emotion and feeling when in a specific environment, he painted the feeling of being in a place, not its literal surroundings; that colour gave recognition into how it felt being there, not it's essential view. We have come to understand the psychological events that can happen in ones mind instead of purely the 'literal' view of colour. In the 1800's, French psychologist Charles Fere, tested and treated mental patients with various coloured lights in a programme called Chromotherapy. It was found that red light had a sort of excitment, whereas blue light had a calming effect (Gage, p. 206).
Ones perspective on colour may be in great contrast to anothers. One cannot directly say that colour is purely science or human perception/emotion. The development in regards to understanding colour has greatly developed, although, through these artists and scientists, we can see that there is not one definite or particular way to approach colour as it is always evolving in many forms of understanding in regards to our knowledge to this day and age.
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Reference list:
Gage, J. (1993). Colours of the Mind in Colour and Culture: Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction (pp.191-212). New York: Thames and Hudson.
