Association of Art historians Conference

The Conference was well worth volunteering for and being an assistant meant that I spent the Saturday in a forum entitled Shades of Grey convened by Janet Allen a curator from Ireland and Annette Wickham an undergraduate from UEA.

 Stillness, solitude, mysticism, equilibrium, urbanity, ennui, emptiness, anonymity, urbanisation, industrialisation, smog, fog, shadows, dust, dusk, nocturnes, concrete, steel and stone are some of the many connotations that artists and art historians have long associated with grey paintings.

Over a period of roughly 100 years, marked by the invention of synthetic dyes in the 1850s to the advent of colour television in the 1960s, Western material culture (high and low) became increasingly saturated with colour. Corresponding with this era, which saw architecture go polychrome and art go Pop, a number of modern artists eschewed colour, opting instead to pare down their palettes and make pictures executed largely in shades of grey. Some, like Whistler and Giacometti, painted in grey for significant parts of their careers while others, like Van Gogh and Picasso, did so for brief but concentrated spells.

This session presents papers exploring grey pictures, the motivations behind their making and critical responses to them. Papers relate to individual artists and specific artworks, as well as to wider ideas associated with greyness. As a ‘non-colour’, how has grey been used to mute narratives and meanings and to signify modernity and silence? How are grey pictures connected with sculpture, printmaking, archaeology, architecture and photography? Further areas of interest include – weather and temps gris, colour theory, grisaille, underpainting, ideas relating to surface, finish and completion, symbolism and social issues.
These are my notes:

Iris Wein from Berlin a colourist.
Use of colour to convey political and emotional responses - Summerland - J. Constable.
Old Sarum - J. Constable the sky conveys a protest against the political situation.

Use of twilight to minimise detail as in The Mill - van Rijn
'The blue of the sky is a subjective experience' Chromotography - George Field 1835. Tiny particles refract light.
Rumfords experiments with light - complimentary colours in 'light'. Red light generates green shadow, blue light an orange shadow.
Elements of light - John Howard.

Anthea Callen Gris clair and coloured greys.
Sunshine associated with blue sky ; diffused light is local saturated colour. In 19 century painters palette had no seperate grey. Paines grey is a mixed tint - indigo, raw sienna and crimson mixed.
3 whites - Titanium/Lead/Zinc. Their components gave inconsistency.
Pissaro - Colours in Landscape

Pigments - earth colours ie from minerals etc in the earth and tints. See Monet's 'Bathers' where he uses greys for the water and earth colours for the bathers.
IDEAS - look at the idea of grey in paintings to convey emotion. Would it work with dyed textiles? Try using indigo as a form of greyness.
 Dr Lelia Parker from the National Gallery - Dutch fine art in black and grey.
Analysis of Dutch painting by Bailley of a girl at a window. A mezzotint. He later used photography and painted from the photographs. 
Details of boy, telescope and their significance in this painting.

 

Frances Guerin - University of Kent - The Politics and Polemics in Luc Tuymans paintings.

Tuyman uses grey to create enigma for interpretation - politics and culture. His work deals with the trauma's of 20th century. Creates disquiet. Painting from something else is not original. 

'Grey is the colour of abstraction'. 

In 'Church' there is no pomp and ceremony of the religious building it is treated austerly in greys. 'Demolition' converts drawn images into painted images his subjects are outside the frame eg The Park ; a site of a murder, Zoo a window about captivity which he expresses in his narrative. The story behind the painting.

FRANK by TUYMAN

Dr Anna-Maria von Bondsdorff Curator from Finland. Picturing the Immaterial with Colour

Colour and meaning in Nordic painting. Symbolism in a white landsacpe. 

Pierre Puvio de Chavannes

colour used had a significance a deeper meaning. 

Anti colourists Helene Schjerfbeck - Churchgoers'

Modern times needed a new language. 

Colour ascetism - tonalism. The palette : black,brown, white and earth colours.

Seuret v Kandinsky.

Kind of colour used - Colour Ascetism - monochromatic eg Toini

                                                               - contrasts eg Angelina

Use of watercolour and charcoal

 

Taisuke Edamura Essex Post graduate now living in Japan - Gerhard Richters Grey Glass

glass a colour that does not belong to black or white.

Grey - its ambivilence

Glass - an in between.

Townscape - he abandended what was originally on the glass and painted over with grey.

Grey surrounds us and we ignore it - grey has the capacity to make the invisible visible.

THOUGHTS during the lectures - experiment with timing fabric is in the dye. How much can the tones be controlled? Consider silk! 
Nettle idea to see how much earth type affects outcomes. Brooches!!
Brushstrokes.