Travel Journal: A Geography of Color

Grand Canal Venice sketch

I intend to focus on the geography of color in the Travel Journal classes I'm going to be teaching this winter both at the University Heights Center (class now full) and at Daniel Smith (spaces still available). I've written about palettes and places before on my blog, but I just happened to find a copy of the book Colors of the World by Jean-Philippe and Dominique Lenclos and it is exactly about what I want to teach. How do you learn what the palette of any given place is? Being an artist, keeping a sketchbook or journal really sensitizes you; you begin to notice the indigenous building materials, flora and fauna, angle of light,  local color preferences, everything that adds up to the unique character of any given place. I posted my sketch of the Grand Canal in Venice (sketched from a photo I took from Santa Maria della Salute late in the afternoon in March after being lost for two hours while searching for this view!) because most people believe there is something very unusual and singular about the colors of Venice, mainly due to the northern light as it filters through the marine atmosphere of the lagoon and rests on the tiles and ochre and cream hues of the buildings there. Artists have been obsessed with it since the 18th century; take a look at J.M.W. Turner's revolutionary watercolors painted there; other artists have been equally enamored of the place. Dominique Lenclos wrote that the world is ..."faced with the danger of a universal and uniform culture..." Recording and remarking upon what we find that is unique and special, and then doing what we can to preserve that is important in the world we live in, filled as it is with chain stores and mini-malls. Venice may have been the first place that architects, artists and planners, travelers and politicians realized needed preservation. I just read a short piece in the New York Times on the architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable, who died on Monday at the age of 91.  She wrote in the New York Review of Books, “When so much seems to conspire to reduce life and feeling to the most deprived and demeaning bottom line, it is more important than ever that we receive that extra dimension of dignity or delight and the elevated sense of self that the art of building can provide through the nature of the places where we live and work. What counts more than style is whether architecture improves our experience of the built world; whether it makes us wonder why we never noticed places in quite this way before.”

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Comments

[Simona]

Very interesting post. I also think that the time of year makes a difference, because of the quality of the light. The first time I was in Venice, it was August. The light was too harsh and then it was reflected by the water and the marble: it was a uniform glare. The next time I visited the city, it was May: what a difference! Lovely sketch :)

[Molly Hashimoto]

You're right, Simona. Time of day and time of year seem crucial for the finest experience of place! I was so grateful to be in Venice in March, and in Tuscany in September. The light of summer can be so harsh.

[Cheryl@emirateus]

I would like to see Venice myself and make my own observations. That would be a lot more fun than just observing from afar. I think you have a valid point about colors.

Certainly as it relates to culture, some countries prefer more vivid colors than others. Artists from the Caribbean often find that the palette that is preferred in some other countries is muted in comparison to their own.

We can't all be the same and that makes art more interesting.