Josef Albers

In 1963 Josef Albers released ‘Interaction of Colour’ which would soon be the most influential book, seeking to find a new way of understanding colour through experience and experimenting. To this day Albers is someone who has revolutionised art and many graphic designs will reference him.

He shows in his book that one colour can appear as two very different colours due to the surrounding colours.  Albers says that colour has many ‘faces’ Shown in the image below unless you look extremely closely you would not believe that the small left and right squares are the same colour.  This is because it is almost impossible to see a colour by itself and not interact with the surrounding colours.

Albers says ‘in my book there is no new theory of colour. But, in it, there is a way to learn to see.’ He also shows us that colour is extremely deceiving and that we need to train our eyes to see the difference and to understand what is happening.

Homage to the Square is Albers signature series where the use of colour is so clever and challenges the viewer.  The choices of colour he uses and the order they are put in are aimed mainly at interaction; they influence and change each other whilst keeping the same underlying symmetrical order of the squares in the painting.