Universal Principles of Art

15 COLOR AS LIGHT

USING COLOR TO RECREATE THE SENSATION OF LIGHT

In the 1870s, a group of French painters that included Claude Monet (1840–1926) and Pierre Renoir (1841–1919) found a new way to recreate the sensation of light. They were dubbed “Impressionists.” Up until then, almost all painters since the Renaissance had created light by describing tonal changes across forms and by building paintings along largely tonal lines. The Impressionists found that if they used small patches of brilliant color and built them into surfaces in which they alternated the color temperature, they could create a vivid sense of outdoor light. In looking at such paintings, the viewer’s eye reconstitutes the color while retaining the lively action of the individual ...