Research

Claude Monet Dusk in Venice

A few defining traits have come out of my early and still very superficial study of colour. Colours influence the emotions of the viewer on a subconscious level, something also reflected in nature. The understanding of colour must come through a deep introspection of our own reactions to colour. Having just seen Avatar, I will explain some scenes I remember off the top of my head. At one point, when the mercenaries prepare to fly of to battle, they are all bathed, as well as the air field, in a slightly desaturated yellow hue. Yellow is a warm colour, inspiring emotions which range from anger to annoyance, though it can also show more positive emotions. Yet the slight desaturation means that it talks on a poisonous aspect, it does not look good visually to the eye, troubling the viewer and causing him to understand the evil nature of the act unfolding in front of him. On the other hand, when we are following the protagonist around the forest, a cool blue tone, accompanied by subtle influences of magenta and cyan, create a soothing almost mystical atmosphere, causing a direct positive reaction in the viewer. The details are almost insignificant such is the power of colour to pass on the basic and pure emotional. We know, through the environment and narrative that we are in a forest area, and that is enough, with the right colours to create the right emotions. A darker red, with bright and harsh yellow spots, while being highly saturated, will dramatically change the overall mood, turning it into a tense and highly dangerous atmosphere.

Claude Monet Impression soleil levant

This can also be seen through nature’s gift to animals in need of defence, or in need of a mean to warn others of its nature or intention. The red and yellow, or any bright colour with a strong proportion of yellow in it, such as lime green will forewarn any others that the animal is either a high danger to others or to those who might consider it as edible. In my look into the Lost World, should I show these aspects of colour through the environment, or should I use colour in a less direct way and leave the viewer to feel what ever feeling comes to him. Obviously, the above example on animals wouldn’t be as precise as that of colour in an environment. The second thing is that animals actually sport those colours, while in the “real” world, generic environments usually don’t show such drastic colours. Yet what I will be designing is not the real world, it is a fictional realisation of it. Sir Doyle’s story is based on a real life environment, something similar to the Venezualan Tepuis, massive formations of Precambrian quartz arenite sandstone. They are the remnant of a massive sandstone plateau, who was victim of the erosion time made it endure. They are usually found alone rather than in a range, which makes them superb and highly surreal geographical arrangements. They are home to some of the original and unique species on the face of the Earth, something Doyle’s has taken to another extreme.

Yet what really interests me is how people from the time the book was written would actually picture such an unbelievable story, yet set in their own actual world. An article I read not too long ago sparked my interest into following anther road than the one I am following now. The impressionist where the first to start using colour to show meaning, though what made them really different is that they didn’t use “real” colours, but colours that would fit their vision. Red would not represent the actual colour but rather the anger the artist felt while he was painting. The movement supposedly started when one of the artists was missing black and decided to use blue instead to create the shadow. This confirmed, or enhanced, the idea that black and white where not present in the colour world, with shadows always formed by their complement on the colour wheel.

Though colours are known to impose and arouse certain emotional responses, it is not always the case. Colours do not automatically induce a viewer with a specific set of reactions. The context has to fit the purpose. The impressionist chose scenes that where affected by a special kind of light, a light that makes colour come out in a stronger way, saturating it to bring out its true potential.

Monet, Le Parlement, Trouée de soleil dans le brouillard, 1904

« Le monde des impressionnistes est une combinaison, une solution de liquide et de lumière dans laquelle toutes choses sont plongées et dissoutes, et cette sorte de nuage acide qui les pénètre est aussi le signe de la mouvance générale de l'univers, dont l'impressionnisme compte le temps dans le vent et l'eau qui coule. »

This amazing sentence, in French, resumes romantically what impressionism is. I will do my best to translate. Here it goes:

“The world of the impressionists is a combination, a solution of liquid and light in which everything is plunged and dissolved, and this acidic cloud which penetrates them is also the sign of the general area of influence of the universe, from which impressionism counts time through the wind and the water that flows.”

The impressionist takes art to another level of emotional reaction, seeing the world through the eyes of the materiel and the sensations they generate. Can the Lost World be translated through this way of working? I believe it can, and even I will never be able to reproduce the emotions and techniques used by the Impressionists in such a short period of time and setting, I will nonetheless take as much inspiration and work ethic from them as I can, mixing it with other art theory, flowing through colour and light, hopefully using movement and shape to progress through the conceptual visualisation of the world. This is not as ambitious as hopefully does not sound, as my main goal is mainly a more emotional and understood portrayal of an unknown.

The best way to explain some of my motives would be through a sort of narrative, in which I am a painter from the late 19^th century and earl 20^th century, and asked to portray the world described in the Lost World. My fictional audience would expect a more realistic view, following precepts instated by the Classical movement a century earlier. I would want their reaction to be similar to the one the actual critics and viewers had of Turner’s first more vague and abstract pieces, they where all wondering what he was actually meaning through his paintings, being a bit disoriented at this new and unusual type of art.  

Turner Snowstorm

            My secondary concern after the compositional attributes of colour and their association with light will be a more down to earth decision on the amount and type of detail to include in the concepts. This remains a world design and I cannot diverge too much past the point where a production crew would have the hardest time trying to interpret the will of the commercial concept artist. I am not a commercial concept artist. Painting art for a commercial use is antithesis to my morals of art as a mean of expression. The paintings will give mood, tone and hopefully, a definite colour palette, along with a distinctive light to give the Lost World a true visual sense.

The main colours I which to use in lake view.

Out of the three scenes, I already have an idea of the colour range for two of them. The lake vista will be dominated by warm hues, a bichromatic association of yellow and red, including everything between them. To keep the scene calm and peaceful, I will keep an analogous scheme, with the inclusion of violet to smoothen and calm the whole scene. Yet the sharp points of almost golden yellow will contrast with it to still create some sense of danger, and to forewarn the viewer of misleading peace. The purple should serve to induce the scene with a slightly more surreal look to the scene. Green as a complement will be implied for vegetation. Details will be vague, as I am asked to represent space, which I will do through shape, colour and light.

The second piece, the forest, will revolve around a cooler and darker scheme, with a dominance of green and a neutral variation of brown, with a cool shadowing of blue. The spot complementary use of red should bring out the colour and create some focus for the eye, red also showing danger and anger, though how the viewer will interpret is not for me to decide, my only power now is only to suggest these possible emotions and work my best so that they convey my intentions.

                                                         

Research for Final Pieces

        Worked on the composition for a possible first piece, played with shapes and detail. I hope this describes space well enough. I wanted to give the Tepui a sort of mystical look, as a holy grail almost impossible to reach. 

  

The shape of the trees point towards the Tepui, hopefully guiding the eye towards it. I think I will surround it with a halo of light, present right on the top of it, which will bath the whole scene in a sharp light, which will create a sharp contrast with the strong shadows. 

I will play mainly on the colour and light, creating shapes through their inherent contrast with each other. I will stick to pure desaturated hues when it comes to the high light exposure, while saturating the tonal values when entering the shadows, with low values. An interesting fact found by Michel Chevreul, a chemist who worked on the relationship of colours between each other. He said that and object of any given colour will cast a shadow tinged with that of its complementary colour, in the same process tinting neighbouring colours with its hues.

Goethe's colour diagram. 

Regarding colour, an interesting text on Van Gogh’s  Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, 1888 and Night Café in Arles:

“Our sensation is the most intense where two extremes are juxtaposed. Van Gogh’s Night Cafe composes colours described as “warm,” which are generally associated with such sensations and emotions as energy, joy, love and festivity. In his letter to his brother Theo, van Gogh considers the work as “…one of the ugliest (pictures) I have done… I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green.” By using colour in this manner, van Gogh exploits the psychological capacities of colours to arouse emotions, here intentionally creating a jarring unpleasant sensation for the viewer. Contrast this with the entry on Picasso and his “Blue Period,” where the paintings arouse emotions more usually associated with “cold” colours, such as sadness and a withdrawn quality.”

What does this imply? Should one avoid complementary colours when he wants’ to avoid too strong emotion and break the union of his painting? Colour allows the artist too control the emotions of his painting. In landscapes, having a warm hue reflected across the horizon plane creates a sense of serenity, of quietness, while a cold use of blue straight away changes the emotions involved, creating insecurity, and wariness. Does adding spots of warm colours increase the warmth of the painting or does it create even more insecurity as the viewer finds himself left out of the warmth and happiness of the spots. Here I tried conveying relaxation through a warm glow of orange, while avoiding sharp shapes of cool and opposite colours. Their are not many details, as my intention was emotions through colour rather than view and excessive detail.

Yet when Mallone finds himself sitting next to the lake, looking across at the fires reflected in the troglodyte caves, he feels happiness and deep sense of well being, though this is mainly due to the rash happiness of having found human life and being able to report it to his colleagues. So can colour represent the rashness of human emotions? Warmth creates a soothing emotion though it also represents anger and quick temper. So how can I represent a certain aspect of warmth without evoking too much of the opposite. The same comes with the cold representation of colour. I believe this resides in their association between each other. Red and Yellow would invoke anger, while Red and Blue or Purple will be more soothing.

Colours respond to one another and on the result of their association do the emotions conveyed depend. Delacroix worked under influence from Goeth’s theory of colour, saying: “Give me the mud of the streets and I will turn it into the lucious flesh of a woman”… if you allow me to surround it as I please.” This perfectly exemplifies how the use of colour, no matter the origin and their “nobility”, can be used to convey anything the artist wants as long as he is capable of associating the right colours.

           

Turner, who is my main influence on colour and the characteristics of light, was also an avid follower of Goethe’s theories, though he used them to as he saw fit, in accordance to his painting beliefs and objectives. “Turner responds to Goethe’s “plus” and “minus” colours that address both the eyes and the emotions. The “plus” colours of yellow and red-yellow excite lively feelings, while blues impart gloomy and melancholy emotions, or “the impression of cold.”” I will furrow deeper into Turner at anther time this week.

Now on the use of colour through my own paintings.

Though I can understand the basics of colour association, I want to understand more, to be bolder, and convey what is needed, while at the same time defining the looks and emotional feel of the Lost World.  See you next time.

Rocky Doodle

Some more work on techniques and colour.

King Kong Review

King Kong,

Fay Wray : Ann Darrow

Robert Armstrong : Carl Denham

Bruce Cabot : Jack Driscoll

Frank Reicher : Captain Englehorn

Sam Hardy : Charles Weston

Noble Johnson : le chef indigène

Steve Clemente : le sorcier guérisseur

James Flavin : Lieutenant Briggs

Victor Wong : Lumpy

A precursor to the whole monster horror genre, King Kong uses impressive, for the time, use of stop motion techniques to animate its giant creatures. By superposing the animated screen and the actors playing in front of it, the director is capable of playing with the scale. Directed by Merian Cooper and Ernest Shoedsack, it was an unprecedented feet of visual effects that is still considered today as a masterpiece of monster horror.

An interesting anecdote is that King Kong is a purely cinematographical story, with no prior myth or book related to the subject, though it is influenced by Sir Conan Doyle’s “Lost World”. This can be seen in particular in the scenes involving the dinosaurs. The film also makes interesting references to the Beauty and the Beast story, with Ann Darrow’s blond beauty prodding the lust of the large ape. This sordid metaphor of the white maiden attracting the large black male was one of the negative aspects of the film, along with its primitive portrayal of the African influenced savages. Kim Newman from Empire, says that with “a 30s' racist touch, it's taken as read he was unimpressed by the black girls sacrificed to him over the years and, in a scene censored for years but thankfully restored, peels off her clothes and sniffs his fingers” This dramatic and sexually induced scene where he then smells his fingers, show the savageness and naivety of whatever Kong is meant to depict.

The amazing matt paintings that serve as a background to the film are some noteworthy enough, as they create the atmosphere of Skull Island. The amount of visual superposition present in the film is quit impressive, with at least three montages if not more. The first would be the matt paintings, followed by the scaled stop-motion animations, and finishing with the actors on the foreground, creating an interesting use of fore-ground, mid-ground and background. The animation crew, led by Willis O’Brian, perfected the combat animations by studying human catchers, which gives the very theatrical fight sequences present in the film. The childish and naïve way Kong plays with the jaws of his dead opponents is quit comical, adding to the humanity and emotions of the film. 

The role played by Ann Darrow, allows in the same way she is supposed to do in the film, an important touch of emotion and love to a film which would have been a simple special effect show. This is what makes it memorable to everyone and allowed it to become a monument of cinema history. Though the actors play an important role in the film, Kong is the lead star. As Kim Newman calls her, “scream queen Wray “, Ann Darrow only serves as a plot device for Kong’s story, giving it the emotion required to bring it to a different level than a simple monster horror film. The film is a gold mine of intense cinema scenes. King Kong on top of the Empire State Building is nothing short of mind bogging as it impregnates itself on our memory. One could even see the possible domination of nature over the feeble works of mankind. But not in that film, as Kong is shot down. The film ends on a beautiful epitaph from Carl Denham, who staring down at Kong’s body, responds to a police man who tells him that the planes killed Kong:

“No, it wasn't the airplanes... It was Beauty that killed the Beast.”

Maya House