Major influences on "modern" art?: Your thoughts.

Not specifically retorting your post, osso, it was just a general statement that once again, like in nearly all art discussions, there is a great deal of subjective judgement. My art professors would put Tintaretto in the category of a colorist in the romantic period of painting, Matisse in early twentieth century art and Richhardt of the contemporary era. I think it's more a matter of artist who demonstrate they are not afraid of color -- Tintaretto extensively painted to decorate buildings. He was probably the Raul Rodriquez of his age (forgive my reference to the Rose Parade but it's New Year's Day).

LW, I must agree that "it's difficult to assign the word colorist to an individual artist". But at the extremes we do find Albers and Yves Klein. And, while more problematical, what about Klee, Elseworth Kelly, Howard Hodgkin, Patrick Heron, Alexei von Jawlensky, Delaunay and the Blue Riders: Franz Marc and Kandinsky? I know that I run the danger of including painters merely because their palettes are bright. But at least we could call "colorists" Albers and Klein (and perhaps the later Rothko).

The dictionary definition being very basic:

Main Entry: col·or·ist
Pronunciation: 'k&-l&-rist
Function: noun
: one that colors or deals with color

One could even qualify it in this sort of discussion (which I realize has tried to move to another thread) as an artist who innovates the use of color. I don't know of any instructor who would qualify it as someone particularly adept or talented at muting and/or balancing color. I've always experience it in the classroom as an artist who uses a plethora of color. Period.

Where each writer, art historian or critic, would want to qualify it I don't believe would include Albers or Klein.

I would have thought the term "colourist" refers to
an artist for whom colour is the most important design element in his or her work. To me, even hand-painted photographs could be termed colourist, if the emphasis is more on colour than value, shape, texture etc....

Design element? Not sure that applies. Although I agree there is some "designing" done by many artists underneath the completed image, it shouldn't appear to be designed. There's one thing for sure, the terminology is probably bandied around a bit too much and this tends to end up making it meaningless.

One could also argue that the Op Artists are nearly all colorists, especially Vasarely and Anuskiewitz. However, not all their imagery is colorist as the geometry of the illusion seems to be equally important or the color just would not work. Briget Reilly was not a colorist, for instance.

I think I'll go watch a good black-and-white movie right now (can anyone imagine "Touch of Evil" in color?) NOT.

LW....agreed any discussion of design elements
can result in generalities, but they are the broad
building blocks of any work of art....I am simply suggesting that a colourist emphasizes colour beyond the other elements.....

The term colourist makes me think of tinted drawings or topographical watercolours in which drawing is subservient to exquisite colour.....

As a rule you might be right as that handling of polychrome could be the outstanding response to the work and where the judgement becomes subjective. So it's a combination of many colors used even if muted as well as the brightness of the chroma. I believe it should create a visceral contrast or tension and often movement within the image and it does in images by artists where art historians refer to them as colorists.

If there's any confusion, I was talking about myself here - not in a complimentary way, but also not self denigrating. Just self acknowledgement.

<ok, I was being manipulataive, trying to get jln to be devil-may-care about starting threads..>

Uh, what'd I say now! I don't remember addressing people being colorists, but then it may have been several pages back.

I'll review the thread later - I leave in a few minutes for what is apt to be a very quiet art opening. We didn't really have a choice in the day to do it, since the town comes out to walk the shops on the first saturday of the month, rain or shine, holiday or not.

Requoting my post:

-ist's and -ism's aside, there is no art movement designated "colorism" and it's difficult to assign the word colorist to an individual artist. My art history professors would likely disagree and actually H. H. Arnason rather avoids the term in "History of Modern Art." Of course, one could always try to Google: non-colorist Matisse and see if there's any hits.




BTW, did anyone get results for Matisee, the non-colorist? I didn't think so.

Your thread on the possibility of a Kinkade bowl--which, in keeping with this painter's theme of gentler times, would probably be marketed as a "commode"--led me explore just what kind of gear he might have licensed. Alas, no toilet--or even a seat, hard or cushioned. But, I did discover that he has branched out into jewelry. For a mere $99. US, one may order a Thomas Kinkade Beacon of Hope Diamond Pendant. This elegant piece of stamped silver features a light house, whose flashing is produced by a small sparkler.

You may visit it at:

ThomasKinkade.collectiblestoday.com

Perhaps, the Tate trustees might want to bestow Beacons of Hope on those recently shortlisted for the Turner Prize--

for instance:

www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/deller.shtm

There are so many excellent artists in the UK, the 2004 prize is particularly mysterious to me. I believe that even Lightwizard might find it difficult to explicate the sensations of motion generated by "Cop with Flowers. San Antonio, Texas."

May 2005 be a happier year for everyone!

JLN, Excellent point about the Fauves and Blue Riders. I wouldn't call them colorists--especially the former group--because their hues seem more a general statement about artists' potential use of color than an individual's graceful exploration of its deeper possibilities.

I find Klimt even more problematic: in his landscapes, he most definitely seems a colorist, but, in his portraits--although color is often highly prominent--the joyful sensuality seems to shift in its major source from color to line. This is just my eye; you may well see this dichotomy differently--or as non-existent.

I tend to think of colorists as staying colorists, at least for a portion of their working years. Yet, Klimt was painting those lush fields and woods at the same time he was doing the remarkable portraits of women. And why not? He had great talent in both areas. But does he remain a colorist when he paints figures? Is my notion of the singlemindedness of great colorists a misimpression from my not having studied enough painters?

To be a colorist involves many artistic mediums. We accept writers use of color in written for to enhance and to describe the characters in the stories they write.

Then there is the "color commentary for sports events" as opposed to the sports caster who simply tells us and explains to us what is happening and what might happen.
But it is the color person than gives us the mental picture of what it really like at the game.

What about photography? Whether it is black and white or color the picture taker is trying to convey what he sees using the color seen by the lens and which can be changed and enhanced in the development (think Ansel Adams).

As you all know I am a newbie at this and am not really schooled in the arts but I think all artists deal with color and that some just use it in different ways as Miklos describes Kilmt above. And all human brains view the art through their optic nerve deal which deals with shape and color.

I beg off from immediate analysis of various people's points here, I am still gathering wits from the weird gallery opening, and have my niece visiting, which is nicely distracting - this by way of excuse for not reviewing the conversation.

When I review it, it'll be as a person who has been crazed for Blue Riders, Fauves, but also of many who play on the plane of very slight and layered color changes, within - a 1/4 inch, or a large canvas.

I haven't read before about who is thought to be a colorist, and am intrigued.

Osso, and please give us an idea of the nature of your "weird gallery opening." Sounds interesting.

I would not be convince that the Blue Riders as a group were colorists even if they produced some colorist images. The Fauves are a different story -- the style and technique depends almost entirely in the techniques of handling chroma which is very influential in more recent art like that of Rodney Allen Greenblatt, David Hockney and Kenny Scharf.

I realize it's easy to split hairs when trying to label any artist and that's why you'll find art historians flipping off the term rather casually without much analysis. It's likely to remain in that area of indistinction with many descriptive definitions, some of them indecipherable artspeak.

My subjective definition:

An artist who works deftly in wide ranging chromatic saturation.

The rest, for me, falls into art criticism as to whether or not one feels the artist is inept in articulating color.

Listening, glight, and expecting to concur or have a reason why.

However.. a calendar I got, many years ago and far away, with the Blue Riders (Blau Reiters?).. was easily a prime trigger, or swat upside the head, for me to like art. It was a start. I probably bought that calendar after a couple of art history classes, which I barely remember, as they were after lunch. I cut up that calendar and saved the different months' pieces for a long time. Munter, Jawlensky...

So, looking back now, why did I like them, other than that they were pleasant? Well, the precise choice of color met my brain favorably.

Using color for impact alone is unlikely the only element in a colorist work. I find it is encouraging the eye, often in visceral way, around the picture plane without relying as much on perspective and composition and requiring the use of a wide range of color. However, like on the colorist thread that was spawned from this one, I noted there is no descriptive definition of "colorist" in Janson's "History of Art" nor in the "Yale Dictionary of Art and Artists."

LW, it does seem to me that while artists in general care to apply color beautifully, color (chroma, hue) serves them as a means to the end of making beautiful work (with the help of composition, perspective, line, drama, etc.). For the "colorist", however, color is less a means than an end in itself. As such, I would define a colorist as a painter whose intention (regardless of the quality of his palette) is color for color's sake.

Ba-boom, I understand that, as such.

But then, JL, couldn't jack, the fellow who deals with benjamin moore paints locally, just do a wall of, say 5374?

and, I might love it...