"The Greens Are Envious of Each Other"

Josef Albers is my most influential example of color theory, and whose thoughts I continually reflect upon, especially, "Every color is affected by the color next to it." The feel of a color changes, becomes less or more brilliant, less or more red, blue, green or whatever, depending on what color is sitting right there next to it. Those are the thoughts that I engage in as I paint my artwork, both Impressionist and Modernist.

The color swatches above are from one of my favorite art books, Paintings on Paper - Josef Albers in America. Albers is the mentor I turn to for color inspiration when it comes to what one can do with paint, and how one can analytically make color harmony decisions. The book is full of color studies, and notes written in both German and English that are small and a bit cryptic. I often pull out my magnifying glass and to enlarge the writing and try to more clearly understand it.

Josef Albers came from out of the Bauhaus era. His teaching posts at the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College and Yale enabled him to pass on his theories to several generations of artists and designers, from Max Bill and Mark Rothko to Eva Hesse and Ray Johnson.

The book is beautiful, and finely produced. It was published for an exhibit at the Morgan Library. I'd say it's for people who really want to investigate color and to have a deeper understanding of it.