Introductory description

This module will explore the meanings and effects produced by colour in art.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Aristotle, Goethe, and Gautier d’Agoty: colour and darkness.
Newton and colour theory.
Runge, Wittgenstein, and the idea of colour space.
Jasper Johns, Wittgenstein and the meaning of colour words.
Language and colour perception: universal or relative?
Land, Constancy and coloured shadows.
Zeki, Mollon, Conway: colour, evolution, and the brain.
Cézanne and Merleau-Ponty: the phenomenology of colour.
Adrian Stokes: colour and form.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a good grasp of theories of colour and their histories
• Demonstrate detailed knowledge of the use of colour in the works of art studied
• Deploy these ideas critically in relation to other theories and works of art
• Initiate and sustain group discussion through intelligent questioning and debate at an appropriate level
• To undertake research and to write up the results in the form of a well-structured argument at an appropriate level
• Demonstrate familiarity with essential ICT skills
• To collaborate effectively with others
• Demonstrate advanced skills in critical analysis engaging with theoretical issues and evaluating competing theoretical models
• Demonstrate an ability to find, select, organize and synthesize evidence
• Demonstrate an ability to formulate a sustained argument using formal analysis, historical evidence, and theoretical frameworks
• Demonstrate sophisticated visual and textual analysis, and to understand the theoretical and methodological basis of analytical techniques
• Demonstrate evidence of bibliographical skills
• Demonstrate advanced skills in writing clear and sophistcated academic prose

Indicative reading list

Clyde (Larry) Hardin and Luisa Mafi (eds.), Colour Categories in Thought and Language (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Charles Riley, Color Codes: Modern Theories of Colour in Philosophy, Painting and Architecture, Literature, Music and Psychology (New England, 1995).
Rolf Kuehni and Andreas Schwartz, Color Ordered: A Survey of Color Order Systems from Antiquity to the Present (Oxford University Press, 2008).
David Batchelor ed., Colour (Documents of Contemporary Art), (Whitechapel Gallery, 2008).
John Gage, Colour and Culture: Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction (Thames & Hudson, 1993).
John Gage, Colour and Meaning: Art, Science and Symbolism (Thames & Hudson, 1999).
T. Lamb and J. Bourriau eds., Colour: Art & Science (Cambridge University Press, 1995).
M. Kemp, The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat (Yale, 1992).

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

• Demonstrate a good grasp of theories of colour and their histories
• Demonstrate detailed knowledge of the use of colour in the works of art studied
• Deploy these ideas critically in relation to other theories and works of art

Transferable skills

• initiate and sustain group discussion through intelligent questioning and debate at an appropriate level
• to undertake research and to write up the results in the form of a well-structured argument at an appropriate level
• demonstrate familiarity with essential ICT skills
• to collaborate effectively with others
• Demonstrate advanced skills in critical analysis engaging with theoretical issues and evaluating competing theoretical models
• Demonstrate an ability to find, select, organize and synthesize evidence
• Demonstrate an ability to formulate a sustained argument using formal analysis, historical evidence, and theoretical frameworks
• Demonstrate sophisticated visual and textual analysis, and to understand the theoretical and methodological basis of analytical techniques
• Demonsrtrate evidence of bibliographical skills
• Demonstrate advanced skills in writing clear and sophistcated academic prose
• Demonstrate sophisticated visual and textual analysis, and to understand the theoretical and methodological basis of analytical techniques
• Demonstrate evidence of bibliographical skills
• Demonstrate advanced skills in writing clear and sophistcated academic prose