"The art of painting manifests the
quality of beauty more through color than any other element. We react, at
times, more to the effect it produces than to the subject matter it portrays.
The unification of all the abstract elements that exist in painting, such
as line, shape, form, rhythm, tonal value, etc. acts as the prestructure
for color. Color is the vehicle for the highest form of esthetic communication.
The real mystery and drama exists in the artist's unexplainable choice of
colors and feeling for it. Color is a most important element in painting
and although it is interrelated with all other elements it stands alone
in all of its harmonious beauty and phenomena."
(AEM)
SPECTRALISM - A PRACTICAL
COLOR MIXING SYSTEM
INTRODUCTION
"To paint the rainbow's varying hues." - Scott
The study of spectralism reveals a working knowledge of color mixing. It
is intended to reduce one's struggle, and help to understand how to find
and repeat mixtures. This is a practical color mixing system intended to
open doors to a new color world. The range of colors that can be mixed has
no bounds. PATIENT EFFORT and SELF DISCIPLlNE is a MUST and if one earnestly
wants to explore all possibilities hard work is the answer. The additional
benefits gained will be good clean color, value in color, the understanding
of color relation, color balance and the illusion of space achieved through
the knowledge of relative color intensities.
It is not only advisable, but absolutely necessary for the painter to be
made aware of a simplified color mixing system.
Spectralism is not a theory. It does not advise on the principles of color
harmonies, complementaries or intervals. It is a practical systematic SEARCH.
Spectralism will enlighten the painter on how to find heretofore unfamiliar
colors and how to repeat them, and is NOT applied SYSTEMATICALLY to painting.
This way of finding colors also dispels the idea that color mixing is a
hit and miss chance as is commonly believed.
It covers the widest color range possible since the basic color reaches
out for its combinations through the complete color spectrum band; and in
turn these mixed colors become basic and repeat the same process as before.
The number of colors to be found are limitless.
(Her final abstraction was to be transcendental: abstract forms were to exist in an ethereal space, with no gravitational relations, and with such a transparency that each form could impinge on the space of other forms without altering them. She had not, by her own standards, succeeded in this achievement at the time of her death, and so the following statement should be considered as only an indication of what was to follow.)
"Aerial perspective in painting is the
illusion of space, achieved through value relation and value movement. When
relating one form to another, the contrast between them, that is, the edges
of form to form, or form to the space that surrounds it, varies according
to the distance between them. This contrast of value is called value relation.
The shift from one value to another is movement of value. This is a transitional
condition. As each value moves on toward its final goal or value, each on
in turn becomes a transitional one, right down to the last value. Movement
in tonal value must be a very gradual, continuous change, from light to
dark or dark to light. What degree of light or dark we reach depends on
what we started with as a related value. The term atmosphere is used with
reference to this quality."
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