Colour and colourlessness: the chromatic discourse of impressionism

Abstract

This paper takes a claim by Michael Fried that Impressionism had ‘rewired the human sensorium’ as a starting point for a rapid history of the problematic relationship between painting and colour. While acknowledging the revolutionary importance of the Impressionist palette, it points out ambivalent attitudes towards the polychromatic and the persistence of ‘colourless’ spatial strategies within works that nevertheless seem to emphasise colour. The mechanics of these strategies in paintings by Matisse, Hofmann and Newman are explored. While the use of thin, stained colour in Frankenthaler and Louis eliminates colourlessness in the production of pictorial space, the paper argues that, perversely, the colour in these paintings becomes something ‘looked through’, not ‘looked at’. The experience of ‘looking at’ colour outside painting, in sculpture and collage, is outlined but the essay nevertheless concludes that as colour becomes more commonplace and unremarkable, its place inside painting remains complex and interesting.