171 - Chromophobe or Chromophile

Another fantastic podcast today from the National Gallery series about colour. I was jotting down notes all the way through. It's exciting to learn new things about a topic you're really enraptured by.

I had never even heard of the book ‘Chromophobia’ by David Batchelor.

He wrote it 25 years ago, so he's revised some of his thinking, but basically he noticed that in the Western art world, colour has a history of being thoroughly denigrated.

For example, it was derided as being on the 'wrong' side of these pairs of antonyms. Guess which is the wrong side.

• Feminine v masculine
• Oriental v occidental
• Infantile v adult
• Primitive v civilised
• Kitsch v sophisticated

Line was considered King and colour was criticised as a deceitful, tricksy adornment.

I was really interested in this because in my latest work, I do feel I've used colour 'across the surface' to conjure a sense of drama. I haven't literally painted a drama I've just suggested it with the colour.

They talk about how Warhol produced the same Marilyn face again and again, in different colours and the author explained that Warhol's picture was an image of an image, not an image of a likeness.

So interesting - helped me understand better what I was up to when I redrew exactly the same figures and coloured them differently.

During the podcast the presenters went on to talk about the Wizard of Oz, one of my favourite ever films.

And finally, there was a moment of serendipity when they started discussing The Wilton Diptych, a painting named after Wilton House (a mansion just 3 miles down the road from me, where I'm going to a Mammoth Car Boot sale on Bank Holiday Monday). Funny.

Anyway I love the whole thing and will probably listen to it again.