Color Theory and Josef Albers

Since I was a child, I learned to mix water colors based on the three main colors, red, yellow and blue. Later, I learned that they are the commonly known primary colors, RYB. Without knowing it, I owe debt to Josef Albers for his contribution to color theories in the 1800’s. The color theory was never really understood until the studies and investigation of blending physical colors in the 18th century. It has made clear especially when Sir Isaac Newton put colors opposite one another on a hue circle, which later known as color circle, then came the primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors, cold and warm colors, complementary colors, analogous colors, monochromatic and achromatic colors, etc. These categorized colors are differed by different levels of hues, saturation, shades and tints. Josef is the foremost American artist who played with colors by painting the same color with different context to show radical differences. For example, if we place five different saturations of the same color in order, we would begin to see a continuous airbrush effect, because the colors are very close to each other which would soften the edges. On the other hand, a different effect would happen if a heavy saturated color is placed to a mild saturated color. This would make the heavy saturated color stands out and the less saturated color would fade into the background. Color plays an important role in our society from every object that we manufactured based on our daily usages to everything we see and have interactions with. Color is especially essential for interior designers, who have to deal with color matching from ceilings to floors and from walls to furniture. But thanks to color studies like Josef’s Homage to the Square, our society has been able to use color more effectively to integrate them into our daily lives.