Color codes: modern theories of color in philosophy, painting and architecture, literature, music and psychology

707 Pages·1996·2.31 MB·English

Color Codes : Modern Theories of Color in Philosophy,
title: Painting and Architecture, Literature, Music and
Psychology
author: Riley, Charles A.
publisher: University Press of New England
isbn10 | asin: 0874517427
print isbn13: 9780874517422
ebook isbn13: 9780585272092
language: English
Colors in art, Arts, Color--Philosophy, Color--
subject
Psychological aspects.
publication date: 1995
lcc: NX650.C676R56 1995eb
ddc: 701/.85
Colors in art, Arts, Color--Philosophy, Color--
subject:
Psychological aspects.
Page iii
Color Codes
Modern Theories of Color in Philosophy, Painting and Architecture,
Literature, Music, and Psychology
Charles A. Riley II
Page iv
University Press of New England, Hanover, NH 03755
© 1995 by Charles A. Riley II
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2
CIP data appear at the end of the book
Acknowledgments
Selections from The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler, trans., C. F.
Atkinson, Copyright 1926 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., are reprinted by permission
of the publisher.
Selections from C. L. Hardin, Color for Philosophers, 1988, Hackett Publishing
Company, are reprinted by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.
Illustration credits: Hans Hofmann, Cap Cod, courtesy André Emmerich Gallery,
by permission of the estate of Hans Hofmann; Roy Lichtenstein, Reflections On
Interior With Girl Drawing, © Roy Lichtenstein, by permission of the artist;
Nancy Haynes, Prelude to Farewell, courtesy John Good Gallery, by permission
of the artist; Jaime Franco, Dante's Dream, private collection, by permission of
the artist, courtesy of the Yoshii Gallery; Charles Clough, The Bearing Painting,
private collection, by permission of the artist; Juan Uslé, Comunicantes I,
courtesy John Good Gallery, by permission of the artist; Mark Milloff,
Sprouting, courtesy Stux Gallery, New York, by permission of the artist.
Excerpts from "Cy Twombly: Works on Paper," "That Old Thing, Art ... ," and
"The Wisdom of Art'' from The Responsibility of Forms by Roland Barthes and
translated by Richard Howard. Translation copyright © 1985 by Farrar, Straus &
Giroux, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar,
Straus & Giroux, Inc.
Selections from Wallace Stevens, from Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens, ©
1954 by Wallace Stevens, reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Page v
For color is the type of love . . .
JOHN RUSKIN
To my family
Page vii
Contents
Preface ix
I. Introduction: The Palette and the Table 1
II. Color in Philosophy 20
Kant Goethe Hegel Wittgenstein Jonathan Westphal P. M. S.
Hacker C. L. Hardin Spengler Adorno Barthes Derrida
III. Color in Painting and Architecture 70
Painting
Monet Denis Degas Whistler van Gogh Gauguin Cézanne
Robert and Sonia Delaunay Morgan Russell and Stanton
Macdonald-Wright Matisse Kandinsky Albers Hofmann
Avery Rothko Louis O'Keeffe Newman Stella Lichtenstein
Halley Ryman Mark Milloff Nancy Haynes Jaime Franco
Charles Clough
Architecture
Le Corbusier Graves Stirling
IV. Color in Literature 220
Gide Proust Joyce Trakl H.D. Stevens Hollander Pynchon A.S.
Byatt
Page viii
V. Color in Music 273
Wagner Stockhausen Schoenberg Messiaen Slawson
VI. Color in Psychology 298
Kohler Arnheim Freud Jung Contemporary Issues in Color
Psychology Oliver Sacks
Notes 321
Glossary 329
Bibliography 339
Index 343
Page ix
Preface
Allow me a word or two on what this book is and what it is not. In a series of
interconnected essays I have pursued the theme of color through the six areas in
which current thinking on the subject is most lively: art, architecture, philosophy,
literature, music, and psychology. The interdisciplinary nature of the study is
imperative. While there has been some interaction among the leading figures in
these fieldsthe Schoenberg-Kandinsky correspondence is a wonderful
examplemost of the color codes under consideration have been developed
independently to suit the purposes of one medium or moment in the tradition. It
is astonishing to note the number of parallels among these theories and the
similarities among the conceptual and physical barriers they inevitably
encounter.
One conclusion became very clear early in the decade-long research for this
project. Color is a source of great anxiety for Modern artists and thinkers. It is a
topic that has frustrated and inspired many of history's greatest minds in
philosophy, the arts, and the social sciences, who have learned that no system or
code can ever sufficiently account for its effects. Contemporary painters,
musicians, and aesthetic experts are still far from attaining mastery over color,
and many of our most acclaimed artists, such as Brice Marden, Frank Stella, and
Jasper Johns, feel a profound uneasiness about its use. Precisely because it is
largely an unknown force, color remains one of the most vital sources of new
styles and ideas. I have tried to give this suite of essays a contemporary feeling
by talking with a number of today's artists and composers about their practical
and theoretical approaches to color. Much of the book is based on interviews
with them as well as on their writings and those of their predecessors. My aim
throughout is to allow artists, architects, musicians, philosophers, psychologists,
poets, and novelists to disclose what color means to them in their own words.
The book is not an encyclopedic history of color theory or a
Page x
monolithic attempt to espouse my own views on color. Neither is it an attempt to
concoct a unified theory or explanation of color in our age. In terms of art
history, this is far from a comprehensive account of Western colorism or an
attempt to set up a canon of the great colorists. Just as this book went to press,
John Gage's magisterial history of Western color appeared, but the encyclopedic
survey offered in Color and Culture is entirely different from my interpretive
approach. The trained eye will spot many conspicuous gaps in my choices, such
as the virtual absence of Seurat, Turner, Alfred Jensen, and others in the chapter
on painting. The essays are based on personal preferences and responses to
works and to the writings and observations of those I consider to be the leading
figures in the understanding of color in all of its variety.
Every young scholar should know where his debts are heaviest. I am happy to
extend my heartfelt thanks to a number of today's most distinguished artists,
curators, architects, composers, and philsophers for their words of wisdom and
encouragement, among them Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly,
the late Robert Motherwell, John Cage, and James Stirling. Many younger artists
also shared their thoughts on the subject, including Jaime Franco, Peter Halley,
Nancy Haynes, Charles Clough, Mark Milloff, Paolo Laporte, and Robert
Wilson. The composer John Corigliano explained the role of color in his recent
opera The Ghosts of Versailles, and the composer Lukas Foss very patiently led
me through the problem of color in performance and composing. I have relied
frequently on tips and encouragement from several prominent scholars,
including John Wilmerding, Robert Pincus-Witten, and Arthur Danto. The study
had its start as an essay written for curator and critic Richard Milazzo, who
prompted me to expand on it and whose guidance has always led me to
important discoveries. A brilliant and detailed critique of the manuscript by the
philosopher C. L. Hardin was instrumental to the revisions, along with some
timely encouragement. I worked out many of the most challenging ideas about
contemporary art in Asher B. Edelman's Musée d'Art Contemporain in
Lausanne, and through him I have enjoyed access to many of the great artist-
thinkers of our time. For their patience and generosity, I am grateful to all of
them.
I am especially indebted to the vision and help of Thomas L. McFarland of the
University Press of New England. He immediately grasped the elusive spirit of