- Publisher
- Yale University Press
- Published
- 2013
- Shelf
- art: Colour
- ISBN
- 9780300179354
Colour
Interaction of Color
Josef Albers
Colour taught as experience rather than theory, a course of experiments proving your eye is unreliable.
Why read it
Albers' claim is that colour is the most relative medium in art: one colour reads as two, two read as one, and no theory substitutes for cutting the paper and watching it happen. It is a teaching method rather than a reference, and it works on anybody who actually does the exercises.
Why own it
Owning it means owning the plates. The whole argument depends on two colours meeting at an exact size on a real surface, and screens re-render, recalibrate and compress, which is the precise variable Albers spent a life controlling for.
Who it is for
Anyone choosing colour by instinct and losing arguments about it.
Reading order
Book 3 of 5 in the art reading order. See all 5
Read nextUnderstanding ComicsScott McCloudMcCloud then adds time, showing how a reader fills in what happens between two panels.Read before thisWays of Seeing
Opens a search on AbeBooks, a network of independent and antiquarian sellers, which is where a good part of this shelf has to be found, because it is out of print.
Read next
Chosen because they argue with this one, not because a machine noticed they share a category.
