His Black Square is, as its title may suggest, a solid square of blackness painted within a white border on a square canvas. He writes, If black is the colour of death, Malevich painted modern art’s most morbid vision. In the Guardian of 28 August 2013, Jonathan Jones discusses Kasmir Malevich’s Black Square. The other used black to make another point. Both Monet and Matisse were giants, explorers, pathfinders and I cannot imagine art without them. Sometimes I think one must become familiar with rules in order to break them. Einstein whimsically said that art was intelligence at play. Contrast the Impressionists with JWM Turner who said “ If I could find anything blacker than black, I’d use it”. Impressionists are painting light and it is not surprising that they ignore black paint. Monet’s paintings for example create energy by changes in hue and using many colours. It creates an absolute contrast that can be “poor” because it ignores changes in hue within black. They suggested that black ignores changes in hue. Impressionists said black seldom exists in nature. They are painted in greens, blues and mauves. An example of Impressionists not using black, is Monet’s Water lily leaves. The Impressionists used a variety of colours to paint an object. It perplexed the great American portraitist, John Singer Sargent, who told Monet that he could not paint without black paint. Monet famously said he did not allow himself to use black. The Impressionists used very little black paint. Didactic, scientific and bureaucratic whilst ignoring the limitations of science. I believe the prejudice against black paint arose because the Impressionists became dogmatic. Henri Matisse, Laurette in Green in a Pink Chair, 1917īlack paint has never been timid or languishing in some container waiting for a brush. Just like that he un-moots black, makes you climb into your head. Colour helps to express light, not the physical phenomenon, but the only light that really exists, that in the artist’s brain”. “ I only paint the difference between things. Matisse teaches us that the relationship between black and other colours are divine. Compare Laurette’s hair with the black chair frame and the black background. In the Laurette paintings he used different blacks. He uses it primarily to create contrasts. Matisse uses black paint to create magnificent paintings. The painter has to make the colours tell a story, sing, dance and feel. I can play the notes and chords, but it does not necessarily make a song. I can compare using black paint to reading notes and chords on sheet music. Henri Matisse, Laurette in a Green Robe, Black Background The Laurette paintings affirmed David’s comments and expanded my palette. I immediately looked at Matisse and spent some time with his pieces The Music, Laurette in a Green Robe, Black Background and Laurette in Green in a Pink Chair. Everything he says moves beyond the canvass you are looking at and sometimes it pauses at a dishwasher. I must now unstack the dishwasher”.Ĭonversations with David are serendipity. It’s great to use with very pale pinks and very pale green tinged yellow. Ultramarine loves black- Cobalt blue and black are almost too powerful, Prussian blue and black scary. Use them side by side and feel the vibration- the same as different types of any hue. There are many blacks- mars and cold black. It gives strength and definition- life enhancing forces. In turn he said “ Black is not to be scared of. I was perplexed and later asked David for a why. He noticed that I was using Mars black paint and immediately suggested a different dark colour. I first became aware that black was nuanced as opposed to “black is black” in a Melbourne Art Class session presented by David Palliser. To overcome the problem, I used Paynes Grey mixed with Mineral blue. It became a relentless Pac-Man, devoured colour and made everything sombre. Whenever I used black paint in the past to darken a colour or to introduce shade, black simply took over, destroyed what I was doing. And there is a range of black colours a painter can use. Yet in spite of the logic of the argument, most artists see black and white as colours. The argument concludes that you cannot have a pale black or a dark white. The same argument also denies that white is a colour. This argument regards black as the absence of light. The argument is that black is not supposed to reflect colour because it absorbs colour. They adopt a scientific point of view that colour is created by a specific wavelength reflected from an object. In writing this blog piece I discovered that black as a colour is moot.įor example, many people do not regard black as a colour. Like being trapped in a cave where you cannot see your hand in front of your face. I am not referring to dark colours or colours in the shade, but to black paint. I struggled to use it in a way that made sense.
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