The Bauhaus influence

The German Bauhaus school (1919-1933) was an important site for experimentation and exploration of the aesthetics of colour and form, and how colour is subjectively perceived in different contexts. The work done by key designers and artists associated with the Bauhaus school is still influential.

Practitioners listed below all taught colour curricula at the Bauhaus school. They all had their own ideas and theories about colour aesthetics. Select artists’ names to open a Google search in a new browser tab, and learn more about them and their work with colour:

• Josef Albers
• Anni Albers
• Johannes Itten
• Wassily Kandinsky
• Paul Klee

The traditional primary colours: Red, Yellow and Blue, and the associated secondary and tertiary colours on the traditional colour wheel, formed the colour model used by Johannes Itten, Josef AlbersRMalexanderstreet.com [video.alexanderstreet.com] and others (Figure 1.38) as a basis for the Bauhaus colour curriculum, and for other schools influenced by the Bauhaus.

Albers and Itten both had a keen interest in colour relationships and how colours appear when placed side-by-side.

Mid-century Modern: into the colour field

In the mid-20th century, artists associated with Abstract Expressionism, Colour Field painting and Post-painterly Abstraction were working without figurative elements, using colour as the main feature of their paintings. Select artists’ names to open a Google search in a new browser tab, and learn more about them and their work with colour:

• Mark Rothko
• Barnett Newman(Figure 1.39)
• Kenneth Noland
• Clyfford Still
• Helen Frankenthaler
• Frank Stella

These artists, and many others from the modern period, created significant artworks that have influenced creative practitioners of all kinds since that time. In the 21st Century, we continue to research and study these artists’ works because of their impact. Students of art and design can learn much from exploring their use of colour.

In Australia, there was a significant shift to abstract and colour field painting in the 1960s. The National Gallery of Victoria held an important and controversial exhibition titled “The Field” in 1968 which coincided with the launch of the new modernist gallery space in St Kilda Road (the current NGV International gallery).

This was a landmark exhibition which showcased the new work of young and emerging local Australian abstract artists. In 2018, this exhibition was re-staged at the NGV International space titled “The Field Revisited”. Read about it here in this ABC News article, and visit the NGV website page to see examples of the abstract artworks and the artists that created them.

Note: the artists and designers listed on this page were not the only ones working with colour in new and experimental ways: this is an introduction to selected key figures in art and design. See linked resources and subject guides for more information on this topic.

Further resources:

Ball, V. K. (1965). The Aesthetics of Color: A Review of Fifty Years of Experimentation. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 23(4), 441–452. https://doi.org/10.2307/427666

David Briggs’ website The Dimensions of Colour contains extensive academic and scientific information about colour theory. These two sections are particularly relevant to this page as they discuss modern colour theory:

• 11.2 Traditional and modern colour theory part 1: Modern colour theory
• 11.3 Traditional and modern colour theory part 2: traditional colour theory strikes back!

1. also see Matisse's publication Notes d’un peintre, 1908 (English version)(opens as a PDF file
2. RMIT students can access this video on Albers: RM, A. (Producer), & Moritz, R. (Director). (2012). Josef Albers - Homage to the Square: Against Deep Blue. [Video/DVD] ArtHaus Musik. Retrieved from https://video.alexanderstreet.com/watch/josef-albers-homage-to-the-square-against-deep-blue
3. quote by Josef Albers (Written ca. 1954 and published in numerous catalogues and articles and in various languages)

Technicolor

You may have seen old movies that list Technicolor in their credits, such as The Wizard of Oz (1939, Victor Fleming, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayor) or The Red Shoes (1948, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, The Archers).

Technicolor is a trademarked process for colour motion-picture that dates from 1932. The original process captured three black and white films at once using a very large and cumbersome camera with a light-splitting cube to capture red, green and blue light on each film. It then used a dye process to produce an opposite colour print – the red film becomes a cyan print, the green becomes a magenta print, and the blue becomes a yellow print. When the three colour films were laminated together, they reproduced something close to natural colour.

Watch this video for more details:

How Technicolor changed movies (Phil Edwards, Vox)

Media attribution: How Technicolor changed movies, Phil Edwards, Vox on YouTube

You can learn more about Technicolor from the Eastman online research archive.

The history of colour photographic test cards and racial bias

In the 1950s, cameras and colour film became cheaper and more available for anyone to use. The companies that made photographic film and the printers that produced photographs from the negatives required methods for testing whether the colour was accurate and realistic. At that time, the Kodak company had a monopoly on colour film and photographic printing in the western world.

The method of colour testing for photographic printing used images of people (usually women) on the test cards to ensure skin tone was accurate. This was problematic because Kodak originally only used models with white skin as testing controls. This means that there was bias in the way colour film presented people with darker skin tones.

These test cards were known as “Shirley cards”, because that was the name of the original model used in the Kodak skin tone standard cards.

It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that Kodak developed a multiracial Shirley card, but this was partly because companies that manufactured chocolate and wooden furniture had been complaining for years that photographic prints weren’t showing enough variations in the dark brown tones of their products.

Fuji film became the film of preference for photographing darker skin tones at that time, possibly because their colour processing favoured a different range of skin tones.

Watch this video to learn more:

Colour grading techniques in digital photography and film

You may have already used filters on your own digital media to adjust and enhance the colour of a photograph or video for social media or before you print it. Most image-capturing apps now have a range of colour filters that can immediately change the look of your image in many ways.

This is simple colour grading, and the same principle is applied to professional photography and film – although the processes can be much more technical and customised. Almost all films and TV series have colour grading applied to them. It can be surprising to see the original footage captured in the camera compared to how it looks post-production.

Colour grading in film and video is an art, and colourists are skilled in manipulating colour using a range of digital techniques.

Colour correction is not the same as colour grading. Colour correction involves fixing problems with the original captured imagery, like editing out skin blemishes or matching colour between different scenes in a video, for example. Colour grading is more about the overall colour and visual style of the image or video.

You might have noticed that some movies you watch have a lot of deep blue and green tones, while others might have orange and cyan tones, very black shadows, or very vibrant reds. With colour grading, deliberate choices are made to adjust the hue, saturation, contrast, highlights and shadows of still or moving images to enhance drama or match visual themes.

All image and video editing applications currently used in the digital media industry have colour grading tools. Anyone working with digital photography and film can learn how to use these tools and apply colour grading to their digital media projects.

You can learn more about colour grading for video by doing these short LinkedIn Learning courses (free for RMIT students with login):

• Creating a short film – 11 – color grading
• Colour grading footage in-After-Effects
• Introduction to video color correction – understanding color theory

1. >O'Falt, C. 2016, "‘Moonlight’ Glow: Creating the Bold Color and Contrast of Barry Jenkins’ Emotional Landscape", IndiWire, 26/10/2016, <https://www.indiewire.com/2016/10/moonlight-cinematography-color-barry-jenkins-james-laxton-alex-bickel-1201740402/> accessed 10/11/2022

A trend is a direction that is developing or changing – as with fashion, which is constantly evolving. Colour trends are how we describe certain colours or colour palettes (selected groups of colours that are used together) that become popular at different times. Knowing about colour trends is useful in design fields like fashion and textile design, interior design, product and packaging design and web design, where new products are continuously emerging.

Commercial colour charts are easy to find for paints and textiles. In design, the Pantone Matching System (PMS) for graphics and print and the Pantone Fashion, Home and Interiors System (FHI) for textiles and pigments have become industry standards for colour selection for a wide range of design and commercial production solutions.

The Pantone Colour Institute has also become known for its colour trend influencing. They select a “colour of the year” each year.

The 2023 Colour of the Year is:

PANTONE
18-1750
Viva Magenta

Table 1.3 Pantone Colour of the Year 2011-2022

Pantone past colours of the year.

See Chapter 3.5 Colour wheels and relationships for more information on colour palettes and an interactive colour wheel.

Also, see Chapter 3.4 Pigments and dyes for examples of famous artists’ painting palettes.