"WATER
AND STONES.
Those are the unpromising ingredients of two very different endeavors."Elkins
"This
is where alchemy can help, because it is the most developed language
for thinking in substances and processes." Elkins
"The starting
point is the study of color and its effect on [wo]men." Wassily Kandinsky
"So
it is surprising that little attention has been given to the matter
of how artists obtain their colors, as opposed
to how they
used them. ....Art historian John Gage confesses that 'one of the
least studied aspects of the history of art is art's tools'." Ball
"Ernst Gombrich asserts that 'art is altogether different
from science' ". Ball
"Moreover,
before the Age of Reason, the distinction between art and science
was not synonymous with that between
intuition and rationality." Ball
"Fear and Loathing of Color .... color threathens
us with regression, with infantilism...color is the shattering of unity
...color speaks of
heightned emotions ...and of eroticism...here, then is another reason
to distrust color: it is feminine."
"To the
chemist, color is a bountiful clue to composition and, if measured
carefully enough, can reveal delicate truths about molecular structure." Ball
Weeks
2 & 3
|
Ball- Bright
Earth |
chapter
4 |
|
Elkins - What
Painting is |
chapter 1
through 3 |
|
|
|
ALCHEMY is
the art that knows how to make a substance no formula can describe.
And it knows the particular turmoil of thoughts that find expression
in colors. Alchemy is the old science of struggling with materials,
and not quite understanding what is happening...exactly as every
painter does each day in the studio." Elkins
"...
the ingredients of painting have never been too different from those
of alchemy." Elkins
"Alchemists
and artists also share a predilection for bizarre ingredients." Elkins
"...instead
of learning words, painters learn substances....That
is the problem that confronts artists, because they are interested
in nuances of mixture...That close observation is sometimes
lost otday, when we think we know what substances are. But artists
and alchemists have to keep their eye on everything, because they
do not know what to expect."
Elkins
Weeks
4 - 6
|
Ball- Bright
Earth |
chapter
5 & 6 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
BROWNS are
surely the least glamorous of all pigments. Ball
"A
good painting, like a good fiddle, should be brown." Sir George
Beaumont, patron of Constable
One
can imagine that the humanistic ocncern to match colors to nature
placed a greater demand on green than on any other color. Ball
Week
9
|
Ball- Bright
Earth |
chapter
7, 9, 10 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
THERE will
never be another fifty years in chemistry like those that began in
1770's...
"Chemistry
may...ultimately teach us systematically to build up coloring molecules,
the particular tint of which we may predict...." Hofmann
Elements are chemistry's cast of characters....
"The
time was ripe for a rational synthesis of color." Ball
"The
power of profound meaning is found in blue. The ultimate feeling
it creates is one of rest. When it sinks almost to black, it echoes
a grief that is hardly human." Kandinsky
Week
10
|
Ball- Bright
Earth |
chapter
2, 8 |
|
|
|