Color perspective

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Color perspective: red appears closer than blue. The example is the canton flag of the canton of Ticino (Switzerland).

The color perspective (also color perspective ) means that colors have a different depth effect. Red and yellow (warm) colors come to the fore and blue and turquoise (cold) colors take a back seat. On the one hand, the color perspective relates to everyday experience of how we perceive our environment. On the other hand, it characterizes the appearance that colors in two-dimensional images (painting and photography) suggest different spatial distances. The appearance is partly due to the physics and physiology of the human eye , partly psychologically .

Explanation

Color magnification errors (exaggerated drawn)
Chromaticity errors (exaggerated)

There are essentially two physical-physiological explanations for the fact that red appears closer than blue, which more or less work together.

  1. The short-wave, blue rays are refracted more strongly by the eye lens than the long-wave, red rays (dispersion). The intersection of the blue rays is therefore closer to the lens than that of the red rays (chromatic aberration). The result is that the blue image projected onto the retina is smaller than the red ( color magnification error ). From the experience that smaller objects are further away (size perspective), the blue object appears to us to be further away.
  2. Blue objects are shown in focus closer to the lens and red objects equally distant are farther away ( chromaticity errors ). In order to see the red object clearly, the eye lens must be curved more strongly (greater accommodation). The strain on our eye muscles is now partly a measure of how close an object is. The greater the effort, the closer he appears to us. So the red object appears closer to us.

Use in painting

The color perspective creates the spatial depth effect of colors on a surface. This gives the opportunity to simulate spatiality.

  1. In a landscape painting , the depth effect can be increased. Yellow, orange and red are increasingly used as foreground colors and green, blue and purple are used more frequently as background colors. In Claude Monet's painting Poppy Field near Giverny, for example, the red poppy field and the sky, the mountain and the trees in shades of blue intensify the clear gradation of the picture levels.
  2. The coloristic modeling of objects makes use of the color perspective. This applies, for example, to Pierre Auguste Renoir's portrait of the actress Jeanne Samary . He uses red and blue to refine the plasticity of the face and arms. In doing so, he emphasizes the liveliness and presence of the actress.
  3. Conversely, the color perspective can be used to emphasize the surface character of the image plane, in that what is apparently distant is given a close-up effect through warm colors and what is close-up receives an effect from a distance through cold colors. For example, Vincent van Gogh reverses the normal color perspective in his picture Schoolboy (Camille Roulin, son of the postman) . The boy's light blue smock steps back behind the bright red-orange background. In this way, van Gogh illustrates the boy's crushing fear of school.

  • Landscape painting: Claude Monet: Poppy field near Giverny, July 1890.

  • Coloristic modeling: Pierre Auguste Renoir: Portrait of the actress Jeanne Samary, 1877.

  • Surface character: Vincent van Gogh: Schoolboy (Camille Roulin, the postman's son), 1890.

  • Aerial perspective: Caspar David Friedrich: The summer, 1807.

  • Color perspective in the interior: Paul Cezanne: Still life with apples and oranges, 1895–1900.

extension

Some authors add other phenomena to the color perspective in which the color contributes to the spatial effect. For one thing , it's the aerial perspective . It says that when the sky is clear, mountains far away appear increasingly pale (lighter) and bluish.

In addition, the color perspective can include the fact that in the interior - in reverse as in the landscape - colors become darker towards the background and light colors come to the fore. This is especially true when you have the window or the light source at your back and look into the dark room.

Restriction

The effect of the color perspective can be thrown overboard if, for example, a recognizable figure or an overlap occurs. Then our perception is irritated and we recognize front and back, even if this contradicts the color perspective. In general, however, it is not advisable to derive rigid rules for image design from the phenomena mentioned.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heiner Knell and Hans-Günther Sperlich (eds.): DBG Kunstlexikon . 1st edition. Verlag Ullstein GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin 1967, p. 196, keyword: color perspective .
  2. ↑ Walter Greulich (Ed.): Lexicon of Physics in six volumes . 1st edition. tape 2 . Spektrum Akademischer Verlag GmbH, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-86025-292-5 , p. 315 .
  3. ↑ Sir William Bragg: The world of light . 1st edition. Friedrich Vieweg & Son, Braunschweig 1935, p. 114 .
  4. ↑ Christoph Wetzel: Reclams Sachlexikon der Kunst . 1st edition. Philipp Reclam jun. GmbH & Co., Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-15-010601-3 , p. 141/142 .
  5. ^ Günther J. Janowitz: Paths in the labyrinth of art. Terms Data Styles Aspects Tables Works. A workbook and reference book . 1st edition. Hübner, Einhausen 1980, p. 405, keyword: color perspective .
  6. ↑ Johannes Eucker (Ed.): Art Lexicon. Compact knowledge for schoolchildren and young adults. Keyword: color and interior . 5th edition. Cornelsen Verlag Scriptor, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-589-20928-3 , pp. 108 .
  7. ↑ Technology Lexicon - Color Perspective. Retrieved March 19, 2011 .