“Color is not so much a visual as a tactile medium.”

— Marshall McLuhan

1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970)

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Marshall McLuhan 416

Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor … 1911–1980

Josef Albers (1888–1976) German-American artist and educator

Quoted in: Margaret Walch (1979) Color source book, p. 98

“Chinese script is not visual but iconic and tactile. It does not disturb the tribal bonds.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970), p. 72

“Visual space is the space of detachment. Audile-tactile space is the space of involvement.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970), p. 194

“Audile-tactile space is the space of involvement. We lose "touch" without it. Visual space is the space of detachment.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

1970s, Culture Is Our Business (1970)

“The geometry of Tlön comprises two somewhat different disciplines: the visual and the tactile. The latter corresponds to our own geometry and is subordinated to the first.”

Jorge Luis Borges book Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (1940)

“The medium of printed scientific text is first of all a visual one.”

Jay Lemke (1946) American academic

Jay L. Lemke (1998) "Multiplying meaning: Visual and verbal semiotics in scientific text." In J. R. Martin & R. Veel (Eds.), Reading science: Critical and functional perspectives on discourses of science. London: Routledge. p. 95

“Visual forms are not perceived differently from colors or brightness. They are sense qualities, and the visual character of geometry consists in these sense qualities.”

Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) American philosopher

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928, tr. 1957)

“Tactile space separates us from objects, as opposed to visual space, which separates objects from one another. I have spent my life trying to paint the former kind.”

Georges Braque (1882–1963) French painter and sculptor

Quote of Braque to John Richardson, in 'Braque Discusses His Art', in 'Realités', no. 93, August 1958, p. 28
1946 - 1963

“The second conception of the world via the medium of matter required both a visual and a tactile perception of things. In this case the whole design process tends to emanate from the specific characteristics of the respective medium used. The leader of this movement (Tatlin) assumed.... that the intuitive and artistic mastery of materials would lead to inventions on the basis of which objects could be constructed. He believed he could prove this theory with his design for the 'Monument to the Third International' (1920), [never built]. He accomplished this task without having any special technical knowledge of construction.”

El Lissitsky (1890–1941) Soviet artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer and architect

Quote from: 'Basic Premises'
1926 - 1941, Rußland: Die Rekonstruktion der Architektur in der Sowjetunion' (1929)

“It's a simple fact, when you move from one color space to another color space, that if there's a value contrast you get a strong optical illusion. Strong value contrast can be expressive and dramatic. Like the difference between high or low volume or the low key and the high keys on the piano... Actually, if you're moving from one flat color to another flat color, if there's a difference of color – if one is matte and the other is shiny – that contrast of tactility can keep them visually in the same dimension. It keeps them adjacent – side by side... Another reason is that a matte color and a shiny, transparent color are emotionally different. If something is warm and fuzzy and dense we have a kind of emotional response to that. If something is clear and you can see through it, like yellow or green or red can be, we have a different emotional sensation from that. So there's an expressive difference you can get that gives you more expressive range.”

Kenneth Noland (1924–2010) American artist

Source: Color, Format and Abstract Art' (1977), pp. 99 – 105

“Color is not so much a visual as a tactile medium.”

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