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[Epigraph:]
"...[E]very colour can be to some extent varied between warm and cold,
but no colour has so extensive a scale of varieties as red."
~Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art
Along the course of the
river they call Time, on crimson sails we glide forward,
into the languorous heat of August -- embracing the chance
to complete the exploration of my Red Series painted last year. (For Part 1 see the July issue https://scene4.com/0622/philipgerstein0622.html ).
"Born Again", 30 x 24 in. (76 x 61 cm),
Acrylic, lacquer, textural media on wood panel, 2021
"Shades of color... awake in the soul emotions too fine to be expressed in
words," wrote Wassily Kandinsky in his magnum opus -- Concerning the
Spiritual in Art.
"...For this reason words are, and will always remain, only hints, mere
suggestions of colors. In this impossibility of expressing color in words,
with the consequent need for some other mode of expression, lies the
opportunity of the art of the future."
Seizing the day with strong resonant color abstraction, the opportunity
Kandinsky referred to a full century ago, was my imperative for this series
of paintings.
Not unexpectedly, my Red series also utilized a lot of textural materials,
such as glass beads and crystal medium -- resulting in a concrete, matte,
touchable surface, responsive to the available light and changing angle of
view.
"From Your Lips", 20 x 20 in. (51 x 51 cm),
Oil stick, acrylic, glass beads, & textural media on wood panel, 2021
Luckily for us, Kandinsky delineated further the physical and emotional
effects of using red
: "Warm red, intensified by a suitable yellow, is orange.
This blend brings red almost to the point of spreading out towards the
spectator. But the element of red is always sufficiently strong to preserve in
this color an undertone of seriousness." He then summarized in his own
inimitable way the cool/hot dichotomy to which this color is prone: "... Just
as orange is red brought nearer to the humanity by yellow, so violet is red
withdrawn from the humanity by blue."
"Echo of a Raindrop" 24" x 36" (61 x 91 cm),
Oil stick, acrylic, glass beads, & textural media on wood panel, 2021
One would be amiss not to incorporate the Russian master's advice and
astute observations when dealing with color and its lasting effects.
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