chapter 5
Color in Abstract Painting
Sanford Wurmfeld Hunter College of the City University of New York New York, NY, USA
5.1 Introduction
The subject of this chapter is the development of the use of color as a means of expression in abstract painting1. The expressive use of color in painting can be divided into two broad categories – the aesthetic and the semantic2. Aesthetic color expression refers to the meaning derived from the use of color intrinsic to the structuring of the image and to its visual experience. Semantic color expression refers to the meaning derived from all the possible relationships colors or groups of colors might have to ideas external to the painting either through association, or metaphor, or convention. This chapter ...
