November, 2002        Page 66

I See Red
Red is a potent painting ground for both emotional and artistic reasons.
BY CAROLINE JASPER

OF ALL THE COLORS, red is the sexiest. It has such appeal for me that I use it as a ground for painting, coating each canvas with the hottest red I can find. Although it may seem an unlikely choice, red as a painting ground makes sense from both an emotional and artistic standpoint.
    Red evokes strong feelings on many levels. It suggests appetite, passion, anger, embarrassment, prestige, heat, and vitality. From popes to power ties, red speaks of authority. We associate red with Christmas, love, patriotism, and Superman. The best apple for the teacher would have to be a Red Delicious. A yellow or green apple might imply less admiration, just as a rose by any other color would not symbolize love as strongly. Conversely, red has potent negative implications, such as the devil or lasciviousness. Regardless of intent, for sending a strong visual message, no other color can match the power of red.
    Artists may employ red to do more than suggest meaning. Red influences how viewers see and interpret an image, and understanding red-hue characteristics in relation to other colors is essential for achieving red's full impact potential. Intensity, temperature, and value characterize all hues. In pure form, each color has qualities that distinguish it from others, aside from obvious hue differences. Some are inherently darker or lighter than others, some brighter or duller, some hot and some cool. When it comes to intensity, however, few colors surpass the natural brilliance of red.

Straight out of the tube, every color is at its saturated brightest, but compared with other colors, red is often more intense and will generally be the brightest spot in any paint box. For this reason, its relationship to other colors and context in subject matter are crucial to overall visual impact.
    Effective color management relies on knowing how colors interact. Certain color juxtapositions heighten the intensity factor, while specific mixings produce dull color. Where and how an artist uses such color combinations can improve or undermine efforts to portray depth illusion. For red, an artist must be aware that when applied unmixed in the foreground, it projects toward the viewer because of its inherent brightness. At the same time, a bright red in the background visually contradicts depth illusion. An artist can further influence red's impact potential in either situation with the addition of green, red's complement. When placed side by side, complementary colors generate maximum contrast; dabs of vivid red interspersed among strokes of similarly intense green visually jump as a powerful foreground combination. Mixing complementary colors reverses the effect. Red is dulled when combined with green, and vice versa. A brown results from a balanced mixture of any set of complements. Red, toned down enough by mixing with green, will visually stay back, effectively keeping the background distant. Applied to realistic artwork, appropriately mixed and juxtaposed complementary colors add a great deal of depth-illusion leverage.

 

Above: Foreground detail of Waken. To give the water a dynamic appearance, I combined intensity and value contrasts, suggesting a forward movement. Strokes of Cerulean Blue or Cadmium Green vibrate next to spots of red ground. Titanium White and Indigo in opaque dashes oppose red's midrange value.

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