Colour is fundamental to painting. However, colour is still regarded as an intuitive matter for artists. In Western painting the methods of handling colour have been ad hoc with only rules borrowed from the masters of the past to go on. With this vacuum a mystique has arisen deeming colour to be a magic that only the gifted colourist can handle; and this by instinct. The “instinct theory” is not new. In 1856 Ruskin wrote “If you cannot choose colour by instinct you never will do it at all”. Prentice's book Colour Plane resists this idea and proposes a formal entry into practical systems of colour management.
The Book 'Colour Plane'
The long-standing analogy of colour with music prompts the idea of a colour standard similar to the musical scale.
This needs to be a graduated system of fixed colours which could provide a starting point for artists planning to work with a repertoire of related colours.
The first aim of Prentice's book, Colour Plane, is to build a comprehensive colour standard. All the existing familiar colours, well known by name, are included,but now with loss of special
status. They will occupy coordinated colour spaces within the structure, inter-relating with other colours in an ordered system.
The standard is built in a three-dimensional model similar to the Ostwald model. The book develops conditions of related colour. Using the Hue and Grey method of working colour relationships Prentice
shows how this system exemplifies colour choice in Western art.
The second aim of the book is to develop colour relationships by introducing colours on new planes through the model.
Readers who are interested in the development of work with related colour are referred to Prentice's book,
Colour Plane by J T Prentice which is available from the author.
Enquiries can be made at em@prentice-moore.co.uk