Colour: Up to 1024 picture ideas

We rarely talk about colours in themselves. Beaux-Arts magazine has had the good idea of devoting its monthly dossier to this subject, which cuts across all the visual arts. Tastes and colours are not debatable, so let's go straight to the images. Are we talking Klein blue or Soulages black?

Daniel Buren had this magnificent word to say about colour, which for him is "in a way pure thought". A pure thought that cannot be translated into music, as it is into words. A "raw" thought. It is difficult to be more concise when talking about colour in an immanent way. The article has many sentences that stop the eye. It's true that it only quotes the best.

We wait for Malevich and his White Square on a White Background. They are there! As well as the kings of monochrome: Soulages, Fontana, Klein and Ryman. Of course. No one is forgotten. Apart from Miro and Matisse, perhaps, while we're on the subject of Niki de Saint Phalle. It would be pure happiness to enter a polychrome world where they would all be present. From the dynamiter Kandinsky to Turell and his light installations, via Mondrian, Delaunay and Vasarelly....

A work not to be missed: 1024 colours by Gerhard Richter.  Starting with grey and the three primary colours, Richter has combined all the perceptible colour shades into a synoptic picture. It is not a metaphor to say that it took a great deal of calculation to achieve this meticulous feat. The discoveries made here show how important the art press still is for the culture of all. By going off the beaten track of genres, bios and events to zoom in on the essentials, it becomes a spur for artists, inviting them, each in his or her own genre, to think for themselves. The tone is set.

Photo: Gerhard Richter - 1024 colours (detail) - lacquer on canvas, 1973

RXM