Local colour interactions
This Post introduces Chapter 21 of my book “Painting with Lightand Colour”. It focuses on a subject that is dealt within every book, every article and in every classroom in which the subject of colour dynamics is treated. It was first described by Michel Eugène Chevreul in 1839. The name he gave to it was “simultaneous colour contrast“.
Its potential for use in paintings was popularised by Eugene Delacroix. It was picked from him by the Impressionists and many of their Modernist Painter successors. In the twentieth century when so many artists turned to non-figurative productions, it came to be treated as a subject in itself. A particularly influential part in this process was played by teachers at the Bauhaus. Of special importance were Johannes Itten and Joseph Albers, both of whom produced books exploring the possibilities of colour contrast effects . Both had a widespread and lasting influence on artists and art education. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce their ideas as a preparation for going beyond them. Doing so will provide the subject matter for this chapter as well as chapters 22, 23 and 24.
CHAPTER 21 – LOCAL COLOUR INTERACTIONS
Three paintings exploring colour-contrast effects



A lot more about colour-contrast coming shortly
Chapte 22 : Thin Lines
Chapter 23 : Viewing conditions
Chapter 24 : Colour and surface.
Earlier chapters from “Painting with Light and Colour”:
- INTRODUCTION to Book 1- “Painting with Light”
- Chapter 1 : The dogmas
- Chapter 2 : Doubts
- Chapter 3 : The nature of painting
- Chapter 4: Renaissance ideas
- Chapter 5 : New Science on offer
- Chapter 6 : Early Modernist Painters
- Chapter 7 : The perception of surface
- Chapter 8 : Seurat and Painting with Light
- Chapter 9 : Seeing Light
- Chapter 10 : Illusory pictorial space and light
- Chapter 11 : Colour mixing – definitions and misconceptions
- Chapter 12: The colour circle: Misunderstandings
- Chapter 13 : Finding a maximum of colours
- Chapter 14 – Colour mixing made easy
- Chapter 15 – Colour mixing by layering
- Chapter 16 – Reviewing previous chapters (1)
- Chapter 17 – Reviewing previous chapters (2)
- Chapter 18 – “All you need to know about painting”-2
- INTRODUCTION to Book 2 -“Painting with Colour”
- Chapter 19 – Colour and the feelings
- Chapter 20 – Optical mixing and its legacy
- Chapter 21 – Colour contrast effects
Reading this chapter about ‘colour excitements’ and exploring the possibilities of colour interactions really feels like entering another world, rich and wonderful.
Also I was interested to discover the painter Serusier whose work was unknown to me.