Colour - Josef Albers

Joseph Albers was an artist and educator who appeared to have innovative ideas about colour used within both art and design. At the age of 62 he began on his most well known project ‘Homage to the square’,within it, he experimented with colour using only a single geometric shape; a square. It explored the idea that colour can be changed through spatial relationships and the whole range of effects that can actually be portrayed through colour. It presented how colour and relationships within colours change through where they are placed, the juxtaposing, opposite colours and how colours interact with one another side by side. Within the project Albers explored hundreds of variations of one basic compositional page of three or four squares placed inside one another, slowly being placed nearer to the bottom corner. It showed the importance of how colours are laid out and used, as they have the ability to produce an emotional and psychological response. The differing plates and colour shames each hold different emotion, character and feelings, however colour is very subjective and different emotions can be conveyed depending on the individual person. Homage to the Square has been created in different forms, including paintings, tapestries, drawings and prints. The fundamental concepts that Albers was exploring within colour were contrast and space, and the illusions that different colours create when found next to each other and how flat two dimensional shapes of colour can create a three dimensional thing that can be seen and touched.