Colors: Presentation and Representation in the Fine Arts Otávio Bueno Department of Philosophy University of Miami Coral Gables, FL 33124 e-mail: otaviobueno@mac.com 1. Introduction There is no doubt that colors play a crucial role in the fine arts. Both the phenomenology and the interpretation of paintings, photographs, and films (the fine arts I will focus on in this work) change dramatically depending on the colors that are used to compose them. A black and white reproduction of a Rothko painting misses one of the central traits of the work. It is similarly a crucial aesthetic choice by photographers or filmmakers to have their work shot in color or in black and white. This choice will constrain the phenomenology of the resulting photographs and films and how viewers will eventually perceive and interpret the works. Less clear, however, is the significance, the meaning of colors in the fine arts. In this paper, I argue that colors have no absolute meaning in the arts, but the effect they are supposed to engender in viewers, the significance that colors have in various artworks, will change as we consider different works, even, in some cases, if they belong to the same period. Despite the relatively uniform phenomenology of colors, their meaning varies dramatically in paintings, photographs, and films. This makes colors behave in far more conventional ways, that is, representing via conventional codes rather than via recognitional prompts, than we may initially think in light of how relatively stable color phenomenology tends to be. It is, thus, important to distinguish the way colors represent from the way they are present in these various media. And by examining the implications of this distinction, I argue, we obtain a suggestive framework to examine colors in the fine arts. To support this conclusion, I examine the meaning and significance of colors in selected paintings, photographs, and films, identifying some similarities but particularly several differences among the various works. 2. Thinking about Colors Colors have a distinctive phenomenology. There is something that is like to see red, and this experience is markedly different from what is like to see blue or green. It is by experiencing colors that we have access to their phenomenology, and it is the colors phenomenology that allows us to distinguish one from the others. As a result, color phenomenology is a crucial feature of color specification, at least if we focus on one s experience of colors rather than on colors as independently existing items. A blue patch will look blue to creatures endowed with a sensory apparatus similar to ours under usual light conditions. Independently of its sensory properties, the blue patch is just a patch, and its color has no salient feature. In this sense, colors seem to lack an independent standing.
Colors: Presentation and Representation in the Fine Arts 2 In fact, colors can be conceived of as relational properties, that is, as properties that emerge from the interaction between one s sensory apparatus, the light in the environment, and the surface of the objects that light reaches (Stroud [2000]). (I should note that relationalism about colors is not universally accepted; for defenses of color physicalism, see, for instance, Tye [2000] and Byrne and Hilbert [2003].) Despite colors (possible) relational character, their phenomenology tends to be fairly stable. Red and green are typically perceived as red and green under usual conditions, although a number of factors do interfere with their accurate perception. For instance, the background can alter the perception of an object s color: the same object may seem to have slightly different colors depending on the background in which it is immersed. Lighting is another significant factor in color perception: the same object can appear to have different colors depending on the lighting it is exposed to. Consider, for example, how the colors of the Piazza San Marco in Venice change depending on the light it receives from the sun. In the early hours of the day, the piazza acquires slightly yellow and orange tones. By midday, on a sunny day, the piazza becomes brighter, bathed in white. And as the sun goes down, the magic light of those precious moments before dusk turn the piazza in a luminous place, until the shadows slowly engulf it altogether. There can also be disagreement in the classification of particular colors. The disagreement can vary among organisms of different species, among different organisms of the same species, and among the same organism in different moments in time (Cohen [2009], Section 8.3). Such disagreement can be accounted for in light of variations in the various sensory apparatuses of the organisms in question (in addition to the interference conditions mentioned above). In the case of organism of the same species or the same organism in distinct time instants, the differences in classification are typically smaller than those among organisms of different species. But despite these differences, the fact that organisms are able to re-identify objects over time and classify their color suggest that there is some form of unity despite the acknowledged diversity. (There is also the additional disagreement regarding whether colors should be individuated relative to the perceptual apparatus of the relevant organisms or whether colors are somehow independent of such apparatus; see Matthen [1999] and [2005], and Cohen [2009], Section 8.3, for opposing views on this issue.) Given the relative stability of color phenomenology, despite the acknowledged differences, the issue emerges as to whether the meaning of color is something intrinsic to its phenomenology. Once again, there is significant variance here as well. For instance, clearly whether one s prey is red or whether one s predator is red are likely to trigger very different responses from the relevant organisms even if the phenomenology of the perceived red were the same (Cohen [2009], Section 8.3.2). So, even in natural environments, the meaning of colors can change quite dramatically. What happens in the context of the fine arts? 3. Colors in Painting Colors play key but various roles in the fine arts. They do not play the same role in the same media or even in the same artwork. Their aesthetic roles crucially depend on particular interpretations or rely on particular convention codes of given periods. As interpretations change and as conventions codes vary, so do the meanings colors are assigned to. There are contexts in which colors convey the mood and set the tone for the mental state of a sitter (say, in a portrait), but they can also stand for the indication of the sitter s social class (with the use of a very expensive blue pigment in medieval paintings), or to demarcate a separate, divine dimension
Colors: Presentation and Representation in the Fine Arts 3 (with the use of gold that is also common in various medieval paintings). How exactly is the significance of color in painting tied to the phenomenology of color perception? The connection is not unique. For instance, the choice of colors in a Johannes Vermeer interior is determined by the intended effect of the painting. Consider his The Art of Painting (1665-1668), an exquisite composition in which the painter is saw working in his studio, painting a woman dressed in blue. The foreground of the painting is dominated by a massive curtain, rendered, as everything else in the canvass, in painstaking detail, and folded to the left so that the viewer can see the painter, working on his canvass, the model, in the background, and right behind her, a sumptuous map of the Low Countries. The different shades of blue scattered throughout the painting (in the model s dress and in the feathers on her hair as well as on the curtain) contrast with the many shades of brown and hazel elsewhere on the canvass (particularly in the map and in the curtain). The result is a brief moment in the composition of a painting within a painting, and a calm, relaxed atmosphere is evoked. Compare this painting with Edvard Much s The Scream (from 1893). Dominated by an orange sky, a brown boardwalk, and a dark blue and brown sea, the painting portrays the undulating intensity of a scream. One can almost hear the sound of the screamer reverberating everywhere on the scene. Despite the similarity of the color palette between Much s and Vermeer s paintings, their content, the atmosphere they evoke, and the emotions they are likely to elicit in viewers could not be more diverse. Once again, it is unclear that there is a unique meaning, a unique significance that can be given to colors in painting just on the basis of their phenomenology. In an interesting way, this point carries over even in the case of literature. There the perceptual features of the viewer s experience do not typically provide access to the content of the literary work. The access to the work is achieved by reading it rather than by experiencing its sensory qualities. (Some instances of concrete poetry may provide a counterexample, since, in this kind of poetry, the particular shape, shade, and even color of the symbols on the page are meaningful. But, clearly, concrete poetry involves precisely the blurring of any sharp line between literature and the visual arts, and thus, strictly speaking, this is not a form of literature entirely independently of the perceptual content of the work.) One may read in a novel a detailed description of the splash of colors generated by a flock of birds flight. But the colors, in this case, are imagined rather than experienced, and their meaning, once again, is not immediately given by the phenomenology of the imagined scene. 4. Colors in Photography Photographs are arguably transparent, in the sense that two counterfactual dependence conditions are met: (a) Had the scene before the camera been different (within the sensitivity range of the camera), the resulting photograph would have been correspondingly different. (b) Had the scene before the camera been the same (again, within the sensitivity range of the camera), the resulting photograph would have been correspondingly the same. (For discussion, see Walton [2008], Chapters 6 and 7, and Lopes [2003].) As a result of these two counterfactual dependence conditions, one is in a position to track certain visually salient features of the objects that are represented in a photograph by looking at their representation on the surface of the photograph. By looking at a photograph of Gottlob Frege, one can identify distinctive features of the way he looked when the picture was taken: his white beard, his tired complexion. Had he been smiling when the photograph was taken, we would now see a smile on the surface of the image. Given the way photographs are produced (the physical response to the absorption of the light that emerges from the scene in front of the camera), photographs allow us to see traits of the objects
Colors: Presentation and Representation in the Fine Arts 4 that are photographed. It is very natural for us to describe them as letting us see the objects themselves. Although this is, of course, an exaggeration, since we do not literally see the objects that were photographed when we see their photographs, we still see an image (a photographic image) of these objects. And due to the transparency of these images, we do see features of the objects that normally we would be able to see had we been in front of the object ourselves. (Of course, the use of the camera also allows us to see certain features that normally we would not be able to see without it, particularly in the case of events that happen too fast for our visual system to process.) Colors are among the visually salient features of a scene in front of a camera that, under suitable conditions, are properly preserved in a photograph. However, they are not always properly recorded, as the comparison of photographs of classical paintings with the originals immediately reveals. But the possibility of recording colors allows them to be used successfully in photographs. Some of the most striking photographs that have been taken, however, are black and white. In the context in which this is an aesthetic choice, it is important to make sense of what this choice means. Consider, for instance, Sebastião Salgado s (always black and white) photography. Whether photographing Ethiopian migrants, Brazilian mine workers, or victims of the draught in Mali, Salgado s photographs capture the immediacy and the urgency, the hope and the despair of the events they portrait. Being in black and white, his photographs make the viewer focus only on what is crucial in the events that unfolded in front of the camera. No distractions are allowed: the intensity, devastation, and decline that are portrayed, the ferocity and the tension of the drama are captured without colors, just light and shadow. There is no scape and the resulting images will forever haunt the viewers. Salgado s images are not transparent with respect to color, of course. None of the vibrant hues that were clearly present in the scenes in front of his camera have been preserved in his images. But that is an aesthetic choice that enhances the intensity of the photographs he produced. By leaving colors behind, the focus lies in the drama, in the pain that is portrayed. To show the colors would almost mitigate the events, draw them back to a world populated by distracting features rather than have them detached, captured in a moment of pure light. What is telling, in this case, are not the colors, but their absence. 5. Colors in Film In the context of films, the striking phenomenology of colors also play multiple roles. There are films in which the contrast between black and white and colored scenes is an integral constituent of the film s overall narrative structure. Consider, for instance, Alain Resnais Night and Fog (released in 1955). The film is divided into colored segments that depict empty buildings, as they stand in the present (of the film), and black and white footage of the very same buildings, several years earlier, when we realize they were part of a Nazi concentration camp, with all of the atrocity and insanity that took place in them. Colors mark the calmness and apparent normalcy of a group of buildings that, on the surface, look just like any other buildings, in contrast with the black and white photographs and newsreel that documented the grotesque, repulsive operations of the camp, and anything but normalcy and calmness was taking place in them. The contrast between colored and black and white images emphasize the sense of distance and remoteness from the past (Casebier [1976], p. 5), and it also marks the urgency of not forgetting what has happened. The absence of colors of the newsreel images gives them special prominence: they faithfully recorded what took place. They are real.
Colors: Presentation and Representation in the Fine Arts 5 A very different contrast between colored and black and white segments is found in Win Wenders Wings of Desire (released in 1987). The first part of the film is shot from the perspective of the angels who fly over Berlin, unable to experience the sensory qualities of the world as experienced by humans, but able to calm humans down and offer them some tranquility and hope. In this context, the lack of colors in this portion of the film highlights the detachment of the angels from all sensory experience: the taste of food, the sound of music, the texture of objects, the smell of fruits, the color of things. When one of the angels unexpectedly falls in love with a trapeze artist and decides to become human, the richness and full range of sensory experiences are displayed by having the second part of the film in color. In this case, colors represent more than the hues experienced by humans, but the entire scope of human sensory affairs: they celebrate the rich sensory qualities of one s experience in the world as well as the full span of human emotions. A different meaning is assigned to colors in another celebrated group of films. During his career as a film maker, Yasujiro Ozu has created a very distinctive body of work. His films have a clearly identifiable look, which tend to focus on the carefully and beautifully composed framing of scenes, a camera that virtually never moves, interiors in which the events and the bulk of the film unfold, which are set against still life shots of (typically) exteriors that mark the passage of time and indicate that the world continues in its course even when no one is present. The bulk of Ozu s films (starting with Sword of Penitence in 1927) were black and white. But, in 1958, Equinox Flower marks the first film in color that Ozu directed (see Bordwell [1988] and Peacock [2010]). What is significant about it? It is immediately clear how restrained and careful the use of colors in Equinox Flower is, and how, throughout the film, this aesthetic choice emphasizes the central point of the work: the power struggle between two generations (represented by the father, Hirayama, and his eldest daughter, Setsuko). The film beautifully depicts the need for the old generation to give room for the new one, in light of the latter s wishes to live their lives in their own terms; in particular, Setsuko intends to avoid an arranged marriage set by her father and instead chose her own husband. Similarly, black and white films are being left behind by Ozu at that point as well, as this new film is shot in color. But just as the new generation, Setsuko, while making her own decisions regarding marriage, still wants to keep the old generation (her father, Hirayama) close by, the new generation of Ozu films, in color, pay homage to the old (black and white) ones by invoking a very limited, restrained color palette. Continuity and transition are carefully woven together both in the aesthetic qualities of the film, and its use of color, and the thematic elements of the plot. A later Ozu film, also in color, Floating Weeds (released in 1959), displays colors more vividly and the range of emotions are far more explicit and intensely portrayed. The intensity of the conflicts among the characters is matched by the richness of colors on the screen. Rather than restraint, colors now exhibit the exuberance of human desire and tensions. Once again, nothing in their phenomenology guarantees a unique meaning to the use of colors in films. 6. Conclusion Colors have a phenomenology; they have a mode of presentation. Although this mode does not uniquely specify their meaning, it contributes to the way in which colors can be used in the arts to represent a variety of different content. From mental states to certain dispositions to behave, from the foregrounding or the backgrounding of events to the signaling of connections among things, colors play a variety of roles in the arts. Whether in their vivid presence in the painting of a
Colors: Presentation and Representation in the Fine Arts 6 Dutch interior in the 17 th century or in their absence in a photograph of an African desert or in the richness they invoke in the contrast with black and white sequences in a film, colors are, in the end, as varied in their meaning and role in the fine arts as their hue and intensity in ordinary experience allow for. This is another sign of their importance and versatility. None of the arts could be what they are or could stand for what they do without the unmistakable presence, or the deliberate absence, of colors. Acknowledgements. My thanks go to Brit Brogaard, Allan Casebier, Elaine Indrusiak, Dom Lopes, and Jordan Schummer for extremely helpful discussions of the issues examined in this work. My thanks are also due to an anonymous reviewer for insightful suggestions. References Bordwell, D. [1988]: Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Byrne, A. and Hilbert, D. [2003]: Color Realism and Color Science, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26, pp. 1-44. Casebier, A. [1976]: Film Appreciation. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. Cohen, J. [2009]: The Red and the Real: An Essay on Color Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lopes, D. [2003]: The Aesthetics of Photographic Transparency, Mind 112, pp. 433-448. Matthen, M. [1999]: The Disunity of Color, Philosophical Review 108, pp. 47-84. Matthen, M. [2005]: Seeing, Doing, and Knowing: A Philosophical Theory of Sense Perception. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Peacock, S. [2010]: Colour. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Stroud, B. [2000]: The Quest for Reality: Subjectivism and the Metaphysics of Colour. New York: Oxford University Press. Tye, M. [2000]: Consciousness, Color, and Content. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Walton, K. [2008]: Marvelous Images: On Values and the Arts. New York: Oxford University Press.