#colorfocusgrey

[colorcapacity]

Color Focus: Grey

In Gerhard Richter’s 1963 painting, “Bomber” we see his oil interpretation of a World War 2 air raid photograph. This is something that Richter would have experienced as a youth in war-torn Germany. This artwork is inherently important because of its historical documentation and expressive nature. “Bomber” is art because of its emphasis and investigation into detail, specifically grey and the despair it carries. This artwork teaches us about the inherent weight grey carries. Richter himself called grey, “the ideal colour for indifference, fence-sitting, keeping quiet, despair." Richter chose to use grey in this piece to demonstrate his emotional personal experience in postwar Germany.

One of Picasso's most famous works, Guernica is also one of his most powerful political statements. It was painted as an immediate reaction to the Nazi's devastating bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War and is extremely important because of its expressive documentative status. Guernica, is art because of its unique ability to show the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has become a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. This artwork shows the immense power and expressive nature of grey and its ability to intensify drama. Picasso chose to use grey in this piece not only to emphasize the dramatic scene but also to emphasize important characters in Spanish culture.

[bricecborchers]

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) “Guernica” 1937, oil on canvas, 137 1/2” x 305 3/4”, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid.

This piece was based on the bombing of Guernica. Guernica was a town in Spain, it was bombed by Nazis and fascist Italy.  It was made to show the chaos and pain the people felt. I think that in this piece the grey really makes this piece feel abysmal. It conveys the fear, despair and hopelessness that the victims of the bombing were feeling. 

[jillxhahn]

Color Focus: Grey

Gerhard Richter (1932-) “Bomber”, 1963, oil on canvas, 51 1/4” x 70 3/4”, Städtische Galerie, Wolfsburg, Germany

For this week’s color focus, I chose to research more about Gerhard Richter’s painting. “Bomber” was made right after the second World War. To describe his reasons for painting these series of planes, Richter talked about his fascination with war he had as a boy. At first, he envied the soldiers, but it took one to rebuke him for thinking the way he did for Richter to put an end to his outward interest. Richter talked a lot about his use of grey in his paintings. He called grey, “the ideal color for indifference, fence-sitting, keeping quiet, despair." These are words that could describe the truth about war as well. Waiting, quiet, blank, despair, tragedy, black and white, fear, politics and sides, etc. These all can be used to depict not only war, but the color of grey. The combination of these two only enforces that. Adding in color would completely alter the purpose. One person even depicted grey in terms of his works as a “veil” showing “deadpan impassivity.” I really liked this image the writer conveyed: a veil draping over the scene. I think that summarizes Richter intentions well. He once was fascinated by and envied the soldiers in the planes, but as he grew older he realized the tragedy that followed the appearance of those planes. To an artist, war tends to be dramatic and romantic, yet as a pop-artist from Germany, he was forced to not take anything seriously, which also makes his efforts to paint scenes of war even more intriguing. As I did more research, I found that Richter commonly used different objects to convey the color grey appropriately. He would find and compile these objects, then match them to the grey hues he was studying. Together, the objects would be used for some of his art pieces. Richter’s painted series of planes was at the beginning of the Capitalist-Realism which was a form of German Pop-Art. This movement was a result of the political uproar, terror, and making sense of the confusion of war at the time. 

https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2017/february/13/what-is-it-with-gerhard-richter-and-grey/

https://www.phillips.com/article/7010732/capitalist-realism-and-richter

[bexthebearartblog]

Grey

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) “Guernica” 1937, oil on canvas, 137 1/2” x 305 3/4”, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid 

In this work by Picasso the absence of colors and the use of gray gives the work such a strong emotion. It makes the work appear almost like a shadow of calamity and destruction. This piece’s use of grays also helps to create more chaos as the onlooker must look closer into the painting to better understand what is going on. It is quite an interesting piece.

Source:https://artandtheology.org/2017/08/03/essay-where-sorrow-and-pain-are-no-more-by-margaret-adams-parker/

[colorinbloom]

Color Focus: Grey

For this week’s color focus I chose to research Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica.” The painting is named after a city in the Basque area of Spain. The city was bombed by the Nazis during the Spanish Civil War, and Picasso painted this piece immediately afterwards. It was painted as a reaction to the devastation and pain the bombing caused, and for this reason, “Guernica” is regarded as a famous piece of anti-war artwork. 

During my research, I was really curious why Picasso would choose to work in grey. Personally, I don’t really associate grey with pain or brutality. Having grown up in the bay area, I associate grey with the fog, the ocean and the city- things that gave me a sense of home, peace, and contentment. If I were to represent pain I’d work in red, or blue for tragedy. However, Picasso’s intention when he chose grey wasn’t to convey an emotion- it was to make the painting look like a photograph. He wanted to draw attention to the urgency of the situation in Spain, and he chose to accomplish this by making the chaotic scene look fit for a newspaper. He ended up getting his wish. The painting was used to raise money for war relief, and he garnered a lot of publicity for the cause by allowing reporters to watch him work, which he rarely did. To me, this painting is a good example of the reasons why artists choose colors other than for their immediate connotations.

[supertaterblogs]

Gerhard Richter  “Bomber”, 1963, oil on canvas, 51 1/4″ x 70 3/4″, Wolfsburg, Germany.

The “Bomber” is derived from a photograph of a World War 2 air raid that Richter could have experienced as a young boy. The color grey carries an expression away from personal experience to an expressionless impassivity. Richter notes that the color grey is “the ideal color for indifference, fence-sitting, keeping quiet, and despair” or “for states of being and situations that affect one, and for which one would like to find a visual expression.” Richter basically created non-figurative and monochromatic grey paintings that removed imagery completely and carried his idea of the color grey with a better focus. 

[lindseyposts]

I chose the painting titled "bombing." It's important because it tells a time from history which wad prevalent. It's also important because according to the website, phaidon.com, it came from a photo of an air raid during the world war, something Richter would've been familiar with.

It is art because someone took their time to paint it and capture a moment on a canvas. It's also art because of the creativity behind it because of the gray color and the message that comes with it.

Phaidom.com also states with a writer named Stella Paul, “Colour and form, carry the expression away from personal experience to a deadpan impassivity, It is a highly charged subject, distasteful and closed to discussion in postwar Germany. Thus Richter pushes the boundaries but keeps everything at a remove. Even though the imagery is very detailed, the work is stripped down to a veil of grey."

Paul says, “remove imagery completely and carry further Richter’s focus on the unique power of grey." Even Richter called grey “the ideal colour for indifference, fence-sitting, keeping quiet, despair."

It teaches us that gray, though not very noticeable, is a powerful color because it's not distracting nor is it too much. It can be used to create a more mellow or serious mood and it's just as great as any color.

[just-a-strawman]

Color Focus: Grey

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Alberto Giacometti (1901 - 1966) “Portrait of Isaku Yanaihara, 1956, oil on canvas, 21 1/2” (of which there are almost no high definition pictures online)

Beyond looking like self quarantine incarnate, the Portrait(s) of Isaku Yanaihara are best described as ‘exhausted.’ The model, a Japanese professor of philosophy, describe “trying to mutually exhaust each other” during the portrait sittings. The artist, Alberto Giacometti, is best known for advancing the study of humans in painting, and this series of portraits exemplifies the idea. Isaku’s head as it is seen in the final product has obviously been shrunk over several iterations, as Alberto attempts to “copy a head exactly as one sees it.” Alberto attempted to take the realistic human form and add the figurative touch that accompanies human perception. After all, humans do not see the world as it really is: our senses are fed through many filters of emotion, mental correction, and even orientation (our eyes themselves see the world upside down, and the brain twists it back post-process). To capture this truer form of perception in a painting requires one to step far beyond what is simply seen.

So, why are these portraits done in grey? In the words of Megan Fontanella, Alberto was “focusing on the gaze and the contemplation of the individual” rather than copying the true scene in front of him. By washing the color away, one can succinctly see and understand the face in front of them without distraction. it washes away all other outside forces, and creates a focal point of the face laid as bare as Alberto can possibly create it.

Grey is an excellent color for this reductionist approach to portraiture, as it washes away distractions. Grey is a ‘boring’ color: we will always look away from it if there is something more interesting. Therefore, it makes an incredible color for drawing the focus away from color.