I’ve been thinking about the vibration of colors for a while now, thinking about the dialogue between them and its different shades, between its symbolism and its psychology.
It’s fascinating to give them names according to their different shades, if they’re warm or cool, or depending if they’re brighter or darker. Testing them by mixing one with another, looking for harmony in their combination, observing the effect produced by putting them together, and contemplating how they become stronger or weaker just by the shapes that contain them.
Wasily Kandinsky’s Color Theory
Kandinsky theorized his pictorial achievements through his books, studies and texts. Concerning the Spiritual in Art, one of my favorites, is one of those books that surprises you every time you read them, you can always learn something new from it. To develop his theory of color, Kandinsky compared a painting and its composition to the process of creating music. To compose harmonically, through color and shapes, was for him like creating a symphony by rhythmically combining the sounds of different instruments. “Color is a power that directly influences the soul. Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammer, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul”, he said. Rhythm is a key element in Kandinsky’s works, and he wonderfully captured it in his paintings through the contrast of colors and shapes in compositions that are harmonious, dynamic, balanced, and vibrant.
Diving into Red
This week I submerged myself into a field of wild poppy flowers with red petals. It was like diving into a painting filled with both rust and scarlet red. This sensation provides happiness, strength, energy, encouragement, support. Musically, as Kandinsky would say, it’s like the “sound of trumpets accompanied by tubas, strong and ringing”.
All of the various shades of red have a different name, sound, and vibration. English red, violet, vermilion, crimson, carnation, ruby, rust, cinnabar, rose madder… each one produces a different sensation in us according to the shape that contains them and the dialogue it holds with the other colors of the painting.
Red for Me
If you had to describe the color red to a person that wasn’t able to see it, how would you do it? In this week’s workshop, we will describe, as poetically as possible, what the color red evokes in each one of us and, after that, we will paint our thoughts about it, creating a connection between our description and our painting, thus generating a code, a personal language to express these sensations.
I wrote this little experiment to express what the color red means to me:
When Kandinsky talks to me with his painting, it’s the passion in red that touches me.
Red is the land, soil, and blood.
Red, the warm color that holds me when I close my eyes.
Red paints me in the emptiness of love, red in my chest.
Orange is red, the awakening of the flesh, fire.
Pink is also red, tender red.
Raspberry red is my childhood, summer, my freedom.
And how does red sound? Like constant cricket singing, like heat.
Photography: Oscar Rivilla
Conceptual design: Carolina Verd
Fashion courtesy of Globally:
Lexington earrings and Manhattan bracelet
Dress by Intropia
Boots by Zadig&Voltaire
Chilli Red lipstick by Guerlain
Carolina Verd 