Using colour on Ithaca outlines the ethos permeating our landscape painting course which takes place this year from May the 7th until the 14th, 2025.
Drawing is (or used to be) the cornerstone of British art schooling. However, this has one major flaw – it generally avoids much engagement with colour, ‘which will be dealt with later’.
During my own seven years of art education, colour studies were delivered at Great Yarmouth (GYCAD) by Derek Mace, his teaching was based on that of Johannes Itten, (Bauhaus provenance). At St. Martins School of Art the subject was omitted from the curriculum.
Colour was barely mentioned on the post-graduate course at the Royal Academy Schools, however Roderic Barrett once gave me a ‘micro-lecture’ on Umber and spoke about tonal organisation of an oils palette.
To remedy the dearth of teaching/learning around the subject, abandoning tasteful behaviour with a pencil, I perused Chevreux’s original manuscripts from the Royal Academy library. Chevreux was the French dye-master general who influenced the Impressionists.
The study of drawing entails an ideal ‘master/student’ relationship. The Master or Professor is assumedly ‘right’ and students submit themselves to being guided by example.
A tried and tested apparatus for art schooling; it is easier than doing the same with colour, but belies academic laziness. Greater intellectual effort is required to tangle with colour than is asserting ‘correct definition’ in graphic form.
There’s a physiological aspect to it as well. The retina of men’s eyes tend to have more rods than cones and women tend to have a larger fovea (yellow spot or focal point) containing more cones; thus women have greater natural propensity for colour, whereas men are better equipped to see tone and movement (which is what rods achieve), for hunting etc.
British art schooling champions a tonalist approach, producing some beautiful results, but a male dominated roster of staff (in my opinion) meant colour is ignored in favour of an easier modus operandi (drawing) – generally speaking!
The paucity of chromatic awareness in art education is one thing – but it goes further.
Margaret Talbot wrote an article for The New Yorker titled ‘The myth of Whiteness in Classical Statuary’ an in depth study of what can only be described as a much wider cultural issue and the curatorial science backing it: namely, that Western art history chooses to ignore polychromy in ancient art.
She quotes various academic sources: Vinzenz Brinkman states: “(we have) a tendency to equate whiteness with beauty, taste and classical ideals and to see colour as alien, sensual and garish”.
Goethe declared “savage nations, uneducated people, and children have a great predilection for vivid colours.” He also noted “people of refinement avoid vivid colours in their dress and the objects about them.”
It seems bone white statuary in places like the Ashmolean Museum or the corridor in the Royal Academy Schools uphold and reflect such ‘tasteful’ bias as does muted restraint in BBC livery.
The grey plague afflicting us all now, echoes dwellings (as were) in Eastern bloc countries. It is ironic we should adopt a similar aesthetic, whilst exercising our ‘democratic freedoms’. The national obsession with Banksy’s black and white ‘art’ says it all.
Colour means joy, but requires educated and careful use. Matisse went to Collioure and North Africa to experience increased light and colour. Ithaca is luminous, more so than the UK; we adopt a similar approach.
Using colour on Ithaca, we present an academic volte face, leaving aside the notion of learning drawing, whilst neglecting chroma. We start by paying homage to Albers’ emphasis on working with paper rather than mixable media, to keep colours lively.
For under-graduates at the Royal Academy Schools, Mike Upton used collage, preventing students from tickling in detail with brushes; forcing them to create in a generalised way. At Ithaca Painting Holidays learners are encouraged to draw onto and into their work.
This disorients them from ‘getting it right’, challenging spatial sensibilities. They have to reconsider the literal aspect, alongside the joy of colour and concomitant emotions.
For those who stay the course, formal drawing is introduced towards the end. Perspective is taught in the harbourside town of Vathi; students incorporate the urban environment into their work.
Learners are introduced to oil painting, which can be technically complex and a practical trial – but ultimately anyone attending Ithaca Painting Holidays will have been inspired not only by a beautiful environment and the Greek people, but by their own colourful expression of emotions in their work.
See: ithacapaintingholidays.com for further details
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