Olivia Gude

Color Coding

The notion of teaching color as a series of formal and physiological experi- ments in perception is deeply embedded in the U.S. university and art school curriculum. Current styles of teaching color first emerged at a time when new

technologies were drastically increasing the availability of synthetic pigments in pure, high chroma hues and when artists were eschewing such extravisual matters as narrative and iconography in favor of abstraction and formal issues. Most contemporary color curricula are still structured on the tacit assumption that the ways of discussing and working with color that emerged out of mod- ern Western culture are universally applicable and intelligible.

Scientific Metaphors of Value

Virtually all Western color curricula teach that the field of color is best under- stood by reference to a fixed set of descriptive qualities that can be summa- rized by a chart: a hue circle, a value scale, a chroma scale. In comprehensive color systems, such as Wilhelm Ostwald's in The Color Primer, these individual

charts are then combined into a multidimensional chart so that the student is presented with a three- dimensional model, a color solid, which is said to summarize all the possible variations of colors. The nuances of color created by medium, surface, and material are rarely considered. Color, decontextualized

and stripped of material and historical associations, becomes the unquestioned subject of such a study. Natural science, not social science or aesthetics, is the

paradigm for examination and exploration. In a typical paint-based color class, students are given the task of creating

a twelve-hue color wheel (hue circle) and a number of charts showing value and chroma. The emphasis is on using imperfect pigment to achieve the theo-

retically predictable results of such experiments as "use three primaries to

generate a complete range of possible hues" or "mix two complements to form a mid-value gray." These experiments inevitably lead to murky violets, dull greens, and indeterminable neutrals. Instead of savoring the multitude of subtle shades created, the students struggle to get the "right" answer, while the instructor is forced to explain again and again, "If the pigments in these

paints were perfectly balanced, you would get the 'correct' results."

Using colored papers, the exercises in a Josef Albers-style color class are more successful in demonstrating predictable and repeatable results. For exam-

ple, when students memorize pairs of complementary colors, this information is reinforced by the visual phenomenon of the afterimage or of simultaneous contrast. Theoretical formulations such as "When placed side by side, comple- ments enhance each other's brightness" are tested and affirmed by the students' own perceptions.

Grounding the knowledge of color in these scientific terms appears to validate the knowledge being transmitted and reinforces the idea that all of the information being conveyed is objectively true. However, ascribing a sci- entific basis to our understanding of color becomes problematic as teaching moves from such perceptual formulations as "cool colors tend to recede

visually" to psychological, social observations, such as "cool colors create a mood of sadness."

2 I1 art journal

I.A spherical color The Western modern tradition of teaching color with its scientific empha- solid uses the pure hue circle as the equator sis on verifiable experiments and its aesthetic emphasis on formalism can no and fills in colors at longer be taught as an unproblematic, universal approach to understanding various values to fit the color. I am not suggesting that we cease using the time-tested color exer- form. Illustration from Joy Luke Turner, The Wt cises of a modernist curriculum. I am suggesting that we contextualize Munsell Color System: current color exercises in the history of modern art and culture A Language for Color (NewYork: Fairchild and reexamine the values supported or diminished by the cur- Publications, 1996). riculum's underlying assumptions and structural metaphors. 2. In the Munsell color In Postmodern Art Education: An Approach to Curriculum, Arthur "tree," the position of Efland, Kerry Freedman, and Patricia Stuhr suggest that art each color corresponds Or to its correct place- 4 curricula make use of the concept of double coding. Double ment in relationship - coding in postmodern discourse is the recognition that to a central value and chroma scalue

and many contemporary works are deliberate hybrids of various

Illustration from Joy cultural traditions. Rather than attempting to smooth out Luke Turner, The different systems of representation and interpretation into a Munsell Color System: A Language for Color harmonious whole, double-coded works create meaning out of

6IL, the dialectic generated by juxtaposition and the resulting cognitive tension. I will discuss several ways in which professors at the University

of Illinois at Chicago, use multiple-coded color curricula to increase the students' sophistication when using color as they are intro-

S". duced to other important themes of contemporary art and culture.

S. / Maps and Territories

The student frustrated by the fact that actual paint mixing does not

SI / necessarily match theoretical predictions is not duped by incorrect theory, but is struggling with the inevitable gap between the complexity of the

. I visual world and the limitations of the systems we use to describe it.

In the UIC Art Education program's color curriculum, students are ini-

lii . / tially taught the system presented in Johannes Itten's The Art of Color. After

studying and painting hue, value, and chroma scales, they study Itten's color

sphere. On learning how this model structures color perceptions, students

study another way of arranging the same information on a three-dimensional chart, the Munsell System's "color tree" (figs. I, 2). Students discuss which

_________ features of visual reality are best explained by each model.

_ __ They note how in the Itten model the fully saturated pure hues can be

easily located around the equator of the sphere; however, cross-hue value

comparisons are less clear because pure hues come in a wide range of value

levels. In the Munsell model, a basic hue circle cannot easily be seen because

colors are located vertically at their correct value level. Hence, a saturated vio-

let will be low on the value scale; a saturated yellow will be at a high level.

Through these types of comparisons the students learn to compare their actual

perceptions to the structuring of perceptions through various systems. Students presented with the historical fact that the Munsell Color Tree

has "grown" over the years are asked, How could a system of representation

grow? This challenges them to think about how knowledge is constructed and

presented. After being shown a high chroma blue added to the chart in recent

years, students discover how the tree grows. There are colors, such as the

electric blue of a butterfly wing, that people have long been able to see, but

22 SPRING 1999

which could not be represented in the model because there was no equivalent

pigment. The synthesizing of new pigments made possible the representation and charting of a visual phenomenon.

Students are thus introduced to an important postmodern principle:

knowledge is constructed within systems of representation, and no system is

adequate to represent the complexity of reality. Students (and significantly, future teachers) learn the importance of using language and systems that do not claim to explain complex phenomena totally. They learn to continue to seek to see "the thing itself"' and not its depiction within a single representa- tional system.

Cultural Contingency and the Myth of Pure Form In the West, most students have had childhood experiences of painting with

brightly colored tempera paints. Red, blue, and yellow are seen as the "nat- ural" choices of young children. This supports modernist narratives about fundamental forms and joyous "primitiveness."

What is hidden in these modernist narratives are the complex industrial

processes necessary to produce the synthetic pigments that make possible the wide dissemination of cheap, brightly colored paints. Students are introduced to color pigments, not as the stuff of earth and alchemy, but as abstracted

substances, disconnected from physical reality and historical contingency. Through books such as the Gamblin Color Book, students understand the inter- connectedness of technical, economic, and cultural information. Subtle shifts of meaning occur when students see an earth tone as Terra di Siena or recog- nize the devotional or status implications of the use of brilliant blues before the 1824 discovery of the bright, inexpensive Ultramarine Blue.

Marta Huzar's UIC color theory course begins as a traditional Albers-style colored paper-based class. Later the class studies and manipulates color on the computer using Photoshop. Some of the work at this point involves using various programs to manipulate "found" colors from photographic imagery. Color is thus reembodied in specific images and associations. The class moves from insights gained in a domain of flattened, static effect to ones enlivened

by the particularity of references. The computer provides hitherto unimagined ease in transforming color and presents unforeseen difficulty in conceiving the translations between color as light on the computer screen and color as

pigment created by various output devices such as laser or inkjet printers.

Cultural Conventions of Natural Symbolism Color classes generally explore the idea that the use of color has an important role in structuring and thus in understanding visual works. Classes inevitably include discussions of the meanings that students attach to various colors.

Typically, blue may be described as soothing, sad, or moody; yellow as cheer- ful and upbeat. Black is associated with somberness, evil, or death; white with transcendence and purity. The language used by students, and often by the teacher, implies that such associations are not based in symbolic conventions, but are natural, unmediated human responses.

Such language is, in part, the legacy of modernist criticism, which may include references to the use of color in other traditions, but describes meaning

23 art journal

3. Kerry James Marshall.

Bang, 1995.Acrylic and

collage on canvas. 108 x 1 13 (274.3 x 287). Collection Progressive Corporation.

as unique symbolism internally generated for each work out of the conscious- ness of the individual artist. Because modern art privileges uniqueness, to say that a work's symbolism is understood within cultural systems or traditional

iconographies is tantamount to calling it inauthentic. This legacy continues into the contemporary art classroom when instructors' language praises origi-

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nality in student artwork and does not adequately represent the idea that interpretation and meaning of color (and many other things) take

place within a field of systems of

representation and associations. When today's increasingly

diverse student body create artworks whose meanings are grounded in

other traditions of color symbolism, they are often criticized for lack of

originality. Teachers who understand such "alternative" traditions only through disinterested study often have difficulty understanding the

depth of the connections students have to other color traditions. If, as postmodern teachers, we recog- nize the validity of many points of

reference, it would be wise to shift educational and aesthetic paradigms and to ask, How can we respectfully include and expand on the alterna- tive frameworks of meaning that

our students bring to the studios? How can we contextualize the cultural

specificity of particular color choices and associations?

UIC professor Susan Sensemann encourages students to get out of the mind set of just looking at pigment or of accepting color associations at face value. As part of the experiential component of the class, students copy a

"classic artwork" and also paint a translation of the work in complementary colors. These works are taken to a public place and students poll passersby about preferences and color associations.

Through keeping journals of their color encounters and reading sustained meditations on color associations, such as Derek Jarman's Chroma or Alexander Theroux's The Primary Colors, students are encouraged to see color meaning as

arising from associations embedded in a wide range of art, literature, history, and popular culture, as well as idiosyncratic personal encounters. Students see that the pervasiveness, complexity, and contradictions of the various associa- tions ensure that no one meaning is correct, normative, or even typical.

Deconstructionist Practices in Art Making and Interpretation Color classes are taught to a wide range of students. Graphic design students

may be particularly aware of the pressure to use color efficaciously by manip-

24 SPRING 1999

4. Portia Munson. Pink

Project Table, 1994.Table covered with found pink objects. 30 x 96 x 174

(76.2 x 243.8 x 442). Courtesy the artist.

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ulating and reinforcing current, common color associations. In such a schema,

knowledge of the diversity of color associations for various people merely allows the designer to effectively attune his or her message to a particular audience of consumers.

Effective contemporary color classes include the study of the artist's role in creating and maintaining color symbolism and the ethical implications of

how such symbolism serves to reinforce particular social, cultural, and eco-

nomic agendas. Using the research paradigm of studying color, students col-

lect images and advertisements, sort them by color usage, and then analyze them for common themes and associations.

An example that always surfaces in such exercises is the systematic privi-

leging of light over dark in Western iconography. Discussing this issue, many students will swear that this symbolism, while unfortunate in its consequences, is natural and inevitable. It is a fascinating exercise for students to trace the

pervasiveness of such symbolism in Western art, literature, and popular films

and to research similar and counter examples in other cultures. Reading selec-

tions like Toni Morrison's

Playing in the Dark serves to make students aware of

the subtle ways in which

cultural resistance surfaces

within dominant icono-

graphies. Along with studying

and practicing the role of the artist as a decoder of current meanings, students may study and

experiment with the role

of the artist as the creator of new meanings and

new associations. In

works such as Kerry James Marshall's Bang

(fig. 3), for example, subtle portraits of African Americans are nuanced

not by skin tones, as all

the portraits are inkily dark, but by the finely drawn lines that delineate

mood and personality. These portraits challenge

the erasure of individuality by society's stereotypical projections onto a blind-

ing blackness. Another interesting example of challenging conventional readings of black and white may be found in Tom Feelings's book of historical illus-

trations, The Middle Passage, in which darkness represents the safe and familiar

Africa and light becomes a symbol of terror and cruelty. Many students are

25 art journal

interested in exploring the conscious use and revaluing of materials and colors

by women artists such as Portia Munson in her 1994 Pink Project Table (fig. 4). Though usually confirming stereotypical uses of color, increasingly savvy

popular culture affords many interesting examples of culture makers revision-

ing dark and light symbolism. For example, in Steven Spielberg's Star Wars

trilogy lightness is associated with the youth and relative lack of power of the young Luke Skywalker and the anonymous storm troopers in contrast to the dark wisdom and power of Obi Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader, and the mature Luke.

In a truly contemporary color course, color will not be taught in terms of isolated and chartable formal properties, nor as a symbol system arising out of "natural" human associations. Instead, color will be the site for the examination of the complexity of visual phenomenon and of created systems of representation. This study of color will yield insights into the role of the visual artist in generating meaning and value in changing times.

References

Albers, Josef. Interaction of Color. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963.

Birren, Faber, ed. The Color Primer: A Basic Treatise on the Color System of Wilhelm Ostwald. New York: Reinhold Publishing Co., 1969.

Efland, Arthur, Kerry Freedman, and Patricia Stuhr. Postmodern Art Education: An Approach to Curriculum. Reston, Va.: National Art Education Association, 1996.

Feelings, Tom. The Middle Passage. New York: Dial Press, 1995.

Gamblin, Robert, and Martha Bergman-Gamblin. Gamblin Color Book. Portland, Ore.: Gamblin Artists Colors Co., 1996.

Itten, J. The Art of Color. New York: Reinhold Publishing Co., 1961.

Jarman, Derek. Chroma. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1995.

Luke, Jay Turner. The Munsell Color System: A Language of Color. New York: Fairchild Publications, 1996.

Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Theroux, Alexander. The Primary Colors. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1994.

Olivia Gude is the coordinator of art education and assistant professor in the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

26 SPRING 1999