A Colour A Day Week 21. 10th-16th August

Jo Volley writes….

Extracts from Matisse on Art Jack D Flam 1973. On the occasion of an exhibition at the Gallery Maeght, December 1949 the title of which was Black is a Colour. Henri Matisse’s remarks were recorded by M. Maeght.

Before, when I didn’t know what to put down, I put down black. Black is a force: I depend on black to simplify the construction. Now I have given up all blacks*The use of black as a colour in the same way as the other colours – yellow, blue or red – is not a new thing. The Orientals made use of black as a colour, notably the Japanese in their prints. Closer to us, I recall a painting by Manet in which the velvet jacket of a young man with a straw hat is painted in a blunt and lucid black. In the portrait of Zacharie Astruc by Manet, a new velvet jacket is also expressed by a blunt luminous black. Doesn’t my painting of the Marocains use a grand black which is as luminous as the other colours in the painting? Like all evolution, that of black in painting has been made in jumps. But since the Impressionists it seems to have made continuous progress, taking a more and more important part in colour orchestration, comparable to that of the double-bass as a solo instrument. 

*Matisse does not mean he has given up the use of black, but that he no longer used it merely for linear construction as in his earlier works. Actually, at this time Matisse was making a use of black as a colour instead of an element of linear construction.

From left to right

1. Jet – W&N Designers gouache
2. Perylene – W&N Designers gouache
3. Lamp – W&N Designers gouache
4. Blue Black – W&N Calligraphy ink
5. Mars – W&N Designers gouache
6. Ivory – W&N Designers gouache
7. Noir Intense – Lefranc Bourgeois Linel gouache

A Colour A Day – Week 20. 3rd – 9th August

Jo Volley writes…
This week’s colours are more earths, gifted by Steven Patterson, Chief Executive Officer, Derivan, Australian artist materials manufacturer, from their Matisse Structure Origins Range. To accompany them please listen to Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde;

The earth breathes, in full rest and sleep.
All longing now becomes a dream.

Each colour is painted out in 3 layers on W&N watercolour paper and read from left to right:

1. Armenian Gugark Cherry
2. Morrocan Yellow Oxide
3. Armenian Lori Red Light
4. Armenian Tavush Trans Green
5. Armenian Lori Violet Light
6. Armenian Kotayk Ochre
7. Armenian Bole