Carlo Carrà's art statement on Futurism in 1913, as quoted in Abstract Art Anna Moszynska, Thames and Hudson 1990, p. 26
1910's
“In Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Fauves – Matisse, Derain – were using bright colours in their full intensity, which continued with Kandinsky, Malevich, Kirchner, Léger and Mondrian. They employed all the colours of the spectrum. In the 1940's and 1950's the majority of the Abstract Expressionists in New York rebelled against this European use of colour and mostly used mixed colours. That is, the Abstract Expressionists did use bright colours sometimes, but they tended to paint wet-on-wet, which muddled their hues. As Matisse would say, a small patch of any one colour is far less intense than a large one of the same colour. I returned in 1954 [from Paris] to New York and showed paintings done in France at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1956 with bright colours that wouldn’t really be used until the Pop artists in the 1960's. My idea of using colour at its full intensity, which began with Colors for a Large Wall, hasn’t changed in the 60 years that I’ve been painting.”
1981 - 2008
Source: 'Colour Chart I', interview with Christoph Grunenberg, 1 May 2009; 'Sixty years at full intensity', Tate 2009
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Ellsworth Kelly 28
American painter, sculptor, and printmaker 1923–2015Related quotes
Quote in van Doesburg's his article: 'Space – time and colour', in 'De Stijl', Aubette Issue, series xv, 87-9, 1928, pp. 26–27
1926 – 1931
“Use them regardless of race, colour or creed.”
Cap 14 "Malaysian Crossroads"
Context: Please, Hussein, use the best brains, the people with their hearts in the right place, Malaysians of total integrity and strong ability, hard-working and persevering people. Use them regardless of race, colour or creed. The other way, Hussein, the way your people are going - excessive handicapping of bumiputras, showering love on your first son - your first born is going to grow up with an attitude of entitlement.
As quoted in Cezanne his Life and Art, Jack Linssey, – Evelyn, Adams and Mackay, London, 1969, p. 154-55
Pissarro 'guided' the wild Cézanne for a few years in painting landscape; for a decade or so in the mid-19th century they often worked side by side and influenced each other
1870's
“Colour as perceived by us is a function of three independent variables”
Maxwell, in a letter to William Thomson, The Scientific Letters and Papers of James Clerk Maxwell: 1846-1862 (1990), p. 245.
Context: Colour as perceived by us is a function of three independent variables at least three are I think sufficient, but time will show if I thrive.
Source: 1932 - 1946, The Studio 132:643', (1946), p. 279
Source: Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884), PART I: THIS WORLD, Chapter 10. Of the Suppression of the Chromatic Sedition
Context: p>The use of Colour was abolished, and its possession prohibited. Even the utterance of any word denoting Colour, except by the Circles or by qualified scientific teachers, was punished by a severe penalty. Only at our University in some of the very highest and most esoteric classes — which I myself have never been privileged to attend — it is understood that the sparing use of Colour is still sanctioned for the purpose of illustrating some of the deeper problems of mathematics. But of this I can only speak from hearsay. Elsewhere in Flatland, Colour is now non-existent. The art of making it is known to only one living person, the Chief Circle for the time being; and by him it is handed down on his death-bed to none but his Successor. One manufactory alone produces it; and, lest the secret should be betrayed, the Workmen are annually consumed, and fresh ones introduced. So great is the terror with which even now our Aristocracy looks back to the far-distant days of the agitation for the Universal Colour Bill.</p
Source: 1930s, On my Painting (1938), pp. 18-19
“Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in fine gay colours that are but skin-deep.”
Genesis 3.
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