Blog assignment 5

Ogden Rood and Vincent van Gogh, two men who changed the way we look at and consider colour. Their experiments and productions directly influenced our understanding of colour. They also developed, and expanded on the theory of ‘colour vision’.

In 1879 Rood wrote ‘Modern Chromatics, with applications to art and industry’ and with this introduced the world to his theory optical colour mixing. Rood suggested that small dots or lines of different colours, when viewed from a distance, would blend into a new colour. This idea is hugely influential in the way we understand how colours behave when put side by side with another colour. You can see this theory being used in the paintings of Vincent van Gogh in his post impressionism stage.

Vincent van Gogh influenced our understanding of colour and thanks to his experimentation and use of colour in his paintings, not only did he change how people looked at colour but he also showed people that colour could be used to portray feeling and emotion. He used colour in a way that his paintings showed not what he saw but more what he felt. This is important because he showed that people could use colour to express feelings and experiences rather than just to record things as they were. A great example of this is his painting The Night Cafe’ 1888.

blog assignment 4

When I think about what Adolf Loos said in his essay ornament and crime “The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from objects of daily use.” I find it very difficult to agree with the man, but at the same time he does have a point. Consumer items of today are design to be sleek and minimalist, for example take the ever popular i-phone. The i-phone’s design is to make it as simple as possible, and by today’s standards that makes it look good and appealing. This would suggest that indeed the evolution of culture is going hand in hand with the removal of ornament. However if we look deeper into the i-phone and its design we see something that contradicts Loos’ statement. Yes, the product is designed be the producer to be simple, and ornament free, but once it gets to a person, the ‘culture’ it was intended for, it is almost always wrapped up in a cover or skin to personalize it to the owner. It gets ornamented.

“The ornament of a savage tribe, being the result of a natural instinct, is necessarily always true to its purpose.” Owen Jones, Ornament of Savage Tribes, 1856

The almost instant customizing, ornamenting, of our possessions shows that people or culture still has the desire to ornament even if it may not be in the way things were ornamented in Adolf Loos’ time.