Jessica Crabtree

For all its splendor, color is merely an illusion.

Technically, it’s how our brains interpret a narrow range of light wavelengths as reflected by objects based on their atomic properties. However complicated (and unglamorous) that may sound, the artist can take advantage of the fact that color is something we experience and use it to create an intense and powerful method of communication.

Most people tend to think of color as an absolute property – the sky is blue, an apple is red, paper is white, etc. But there is no such thing as a “default color,” because color itself is an optical illusion and the appearance of a given surface varies greatly. No one is more keenly aware of this dilemma – and its potential – than the artist.

Take an eye for example: the white of your eye may properly be white, but it rarely if ever appears so. Under any kind of shadow it will appear gray or blue.

Because it is fluid, it tends to reflect its surroundings. And because its surface is curved, the more distant area will reflect light differently and thus appear a slightly different color. Now turn your head in a different direction, or turn on a light, and all of these variables will change. Much the same is true about skin tones. A Caucasian person’s skin may be a pale pink, and an African’s dark brown, but at any given moment, depending on light conditions and environment, human skin will reflect any number of shades of red, purple, blue – and in dark shadows it can appear black.

Think of everyday life as a film made up of hundreds of frames per second; a painting, like a photograph, freezes the appearance of an object or surface in a single frame, with the position and lighting conditions as they existed at that exact moment. An artist has to train himself to see these actual conditions, rather than what his brain tells him to see. A painter working in realism can use his understanding of the properties of light and color to his advantage by manipulating hues and tones to create the effect of depth, shape, and texture on a two-dimensional surface (that is, a canvas or paper). A viewer’s eye will notice these details and interpret them as consistent with reality, even if he is completely unaware of them.

Next: The Properties of Color