Albers' Interaction of Color (1963)
Josef Albers' course in seeing: make one color look like two, and two colors look like one.
- Published
- Yale University Press, 1963
- Method
- Exercises with colored paper
- Lesson
- Color is relative
Interaction of Color, published by Yale University Press in 1963, records the color course Josef Albers taught at Black Mountain College and Yale. It has almost no color theory in the usual sense. Instead it sets exercises, done with sheets of colored paper, that train the eye to notice what colors do to each other.
The core claim: we almost never see a color as it physically is. A color changes with its neighbors (simultaneous contrast), with how much area it covers, and with the light. So the exercises are traps to catch yourself seeing: make one color look like two by changing its surroundings; make two different colors look alike; find a color that seems to be the mixture of two others, creating illusions of transparency.
Albers worked with colored paper rather than paint, partly because a printed sheet is a fixed, repeatable color, so there are no mixing errors, only perception. Students learned that the eye is easily fooled and that judging color, and value above all, is a trained skill, the same idea behind this app's eye-training gym.
The first edition came as a large portfolio of color plates; later editions, including a digital one, followed. It descends from Chevreul's 1839 law of contrast and from the Bauhaus preliminary course, and its lessons run through Albers' own Homage to the Square paintings.
Swatches
- The same color...
- ...looks darker on a light ground
- ...and lighter on a dark ground
Colors
Sources
- Albers, J. (1963). Interaction of Color. Yale University Press (50th anniversary ed. 2013).
- Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. Interaction of Color.
- Wikipedia, 'Josef Albers'.
Hex values are screen approximations. Every page lists its sources.