Artists

72 Artists & IllustratorsEVOLUTION OF COLOURPAINTER’S CHOICEAL TAKES A LOOK AT THE COLOURPALETTES OF THE MASTERSTitian: Lead White, Ultramarine Blue, Red Madder,Burnt Sienna, Malachite Green, Red Ochre, YellowOchre, Orpiment (a yellow) and Ivory BlackCamille Pissarro: Lead White, Chrome Yellow,Vermilion, Rose Madder, Ultramarine Blue, CobaltBlue and Cobalt Violet.John Constable: Lead White, Yellow Ochre, Umber,Red Earth, Emerald Green, Ultramarine Blue,Prussian Blue and Black.Peter Paul Rubens: Lead White, Orpiment,Yellow Ochre, Yellow Lake, Vermilion, Red Ochre,Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, Green Earth, VertAzur (a blue-green), Malachite Green and ofcourse, Burnt Sienna.``````ABOVEThis Fauvist-style portraituses Cadmium Lemon,Cadmium Red, Cobalt Violet,Cadmium Greenand Cerulean Blue``````Just as Impressionism had spread rapidly throughEurope and America, modern examples of colourexpression appeared in salons, galleries and artschools throughout the western world. Coexisting sideby side at the advent of World War I, the works ofpainters such as John Singer Sargent and ThomasEakins could be seen in the same cities as AndréDerain and Matisse. The modern world of colour andartists palettes had exploded. On the one hand theclassic palette continued to be a standard for manyartists, while other artists tailored their palettes totheir personal tastes and aesthetics.The period from the beginning of the 19th century tothe start of World War I contained some of the mostwide ranging and experimental developments inaesthetics, artists’ materials and colour theories of anyin western history.In the first decade of the 20th-century, AlbertMunsell, a painter and teacher at the MassachusettsCollege of Art in the United States, outlined hisconcepts of ‘hue, value and chroma’, which becameknown as the Munsell System. His rational view oforganising the experience of colour has become one ofthe primary modern systems of colour notation both inthe fine arts and the colour industry. He suggested thatany given colour was a hue (member of a colour family:red, yellow or blue), a value (lighter or darker on a scalefrom pure white to black with middle values inbetween) and a chromatic intensity (how bright or dullthe colour was).This comprehensive academic approach tounderstanding colours added to an array of conceptsthat painters utilised in organising the experience ofcolour via their eye and materials. Most manufacturersof artists’ oil colours, as well as those of acrylics –developed in the 1950s – use the Munsell Systemand even note the hue, value and chroma of a colouron the paint tubes.In the 1920s in Germany, a young artist and teacherat the Bauhaus school was to become one of the mostimportant influences on modern art of the 20th70 Al Gury.indd 72 08/06/2016 16:40