Josef Albers

Josef Albers, the man who brought European Modernism and Bauhaus to America. His output towards the use of colour is revolutionary, Albers believed that in normal seeing, we use our eyes so much, we become so accustomed to it. However, according to Debbie Millman, Albers perception was more profound, he saw that one single colour could be transformed into two depending on the relationships it had with other colours. 
He was not about giving rules of colour in his teaching but was was for giving tools on how to unlock the keys of colour. Albers believed that colour is “the most relative medium in art” due to the fact that “in visual perception a colour is almost never seen as it really is - as it physically is”. The book ‘Interaction of Colour’ truly shows the driven and experimental attitude Albers had towards the colour. The book is insightful and eye opening as Albers looks at the many theories and experiments, such as visual memory, transparence, the relativity of colour, space-illusion, temperature and humidity and the afterimage effect. The after image effect is the experiment of looking at the colour red and then going straight to looking at the colour white, this quick change in colour bring the phenomenon of seeing green instead of white, this experiment is also called simultaneous contrast. Albers also goes on to state that there a two factors that cause the difference in colours, that being the light and hue. In 1950, Albers began his signature series, the ‘Homage to the Square’, in this series he produces hundreds of different simple compositions colour schemes, working with 3-4 squares inside each other which were slightly gravitating downward. In 1965, he went on to write about the series and how they are all of different palettes and how they therefore speak of different climates. The choices of colours were aimed to create an interaction influencing and changing each other. This created a change in character and feeling in the paintings, aimed to form an understanding from audience through emotion.