Friday, July 27, 2012

Friday Picks and History Tour of the Color Wheel

Detail of a lithograph at Wonderfair for Final Fridays


FInal Friday Picks: 
Tonight is Final Friday and we'll be out taking party pics ( posted on Saturday!).  Be sure to check out Karen's top three FInal Friday picks here:http://larryvilleartists.blogspot.com/2012/07/karens-three-final-friday-picks.html
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We are excited to hear that Lawrence doo wop band Dean Monkey and the Dropouts are recording songs for their new CD this weekend.  Band members say this will be their best set of songs yet.  Check out their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dean-Monkey-the-Dropouts/224375187590394
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The Color Wheel
We take its diagram for granted.  However, did you know that there are different versions of the color wheel, especially through history?

The Greeks: For the Greeks, color was first thought of in terms of light and dark. Aristotle believed that color was mixtures of light and dark with basic hues between.  Thus, he arranged his colors to look something like this. 

Linear color 

Age of Enlightenment: Isaac Newton's experiments with light was important to color theory.  He recognized that colors could be created by mixing color primaries.  

The scientist and naturalist Moses Harris was the first to put red, yellow, and blue as primary colors in a color wheel in the 18th century.  Harris worked with pigments rather than lights following a discovery by a French painter that all hues could be reduced to the primary color pigments.  



Itten's Color Wheel



Modern Color Wheel: We owe much to Bauhaus teacher Johannes Itten for the modern looking color wheel.  Itten developed a simplified color wheel, departing from the colors wheels that were used during his time which contained too few or too many colors.  Itten's color wheel makes it easy to find the connection between hues. 


artwork by Itten "Horizontal and Vertical" 1955





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