Monday, May 7, 2012

The Conspiracy of Colors

 


While browsing the unwanted books section at a local thrift store, I came across an amazing item: The Elements of Color by Johannes Itten. The book's subtitle is "A treatise on the color system of Johannes Itten based on his book The Art of Color," and the contents are full of beautiful diagrams and fascinating (if a tiny bit overblown) writing on the practice and history of color theory. It was definitely worth the $2.99 spent. I adapted some of the figures within the book for this comic. I loved the way Itten wrote of the colors as if they were living, breathing entities, with the capacity for good - or evil.
You can order a poster here

7 comments:

  1. Wonderful piece, and a fine introduction to the immense hidden depths of colour theory.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Colours are evil. I try to avoid them, but they refuse to go away.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lovely cartoon, and at $2.99, you got an absolute bargain. That book is precious. I've taken a course on color with someone associated with the original Bauhaus school. She talks about colors as if they are people in social groups.

    ReplyDelete
  4. funny, it makes me think of home depot and the paint section. My wife has been taking about re-painting the home and all I hear is "what you think about this color.... or this one....". It's like I'm in a black hole and the paint department is sucking the life out of me. But nice cartoon.

    ReplyDelete
  5. https://plus.google.com/u/0/109788994808273560942/posts

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks to this comic (and your explanation), I also found "The Elements of Colour" in a thrift store, for... $3.00!
    It's helping me immensely.

    Your work is something special. I truly appreciate it.
    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete