Color and space in the still life

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Janita Hayworth Eldridge (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Peter Agostini

Abstract: The paintings I am exhibiting are the result of a period of intensive study of color and light refractions. I chose to work mainly with the still life because it afforded a lengthy examination of a situation under reliably consistent conditions. When I began painting the still life, I was concerned with color relationships in space. I used a system of color mixing based on two groups of reds (earth pigments and chemical pigments) and their complements. This system gave my colors a clarity which became very important in capturing the movement of light in a situation. The point most interesting to me as I worked was the way colors related to each other along a horizontal line. I began working outward from this line, placing color its proper distance from the line. It followed that a vertical line would set up the same conditions, so I placed a vertical line perpendicular to the horizontal line. The idea of setting up space along perpendicular lines was one I had been concerned with for a long time in my drawing and painting of the figure and the still life. I found that, in painting the still life, by imposing these lines at any point on the situation, I could successfully relate the color and light in space.

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Language: English
Date: 1977

Email this document to