C o n t r a s t o f H u e

In contrast of hue, the colors on the wheel are used in such a way as to proclaim their separate identities. We find examples of this use of color in folk art, handicrafts, and costumes, in the signs, banners, and decorations of fiestas. We see it used in paintings, in posters, billboards, and clothes expressive of youth, communal well-being, sports, earthly joy, and abundance. [35] Some say that the primary colors, seen individually or together, are less expressive than the secondary colors, and that colors of neither group in their pure state are as tolerable as diminished versions of them. There may be some element of truth in this, but the whole truth concerning color is never easy to pin down. There are some persons who profess a strong dislike for contrast of primaries and other bright hues. Perhaps the blatant use of colors in the omnipresent signs and advertisements has prejudiced them against straightforward, undiminished hues. Yet Léger, the renowned French attist, loved the visual cacophony of our American commercial environment; he seized upon these brash colors and associated bold shapes and "big rhythms" for his last important compositions of divers, construction workers, circus folk, and vacationers. There was also Stuart Davis, who used the color and imagery of the age of jazz, contemporary popular culture, and mass media in his painting, from about the time of World War I. One of several American artists influenced by the historic New York Armory show of 1913., Davis was the only one who stubbornly continued to develop an art based on the clamorous hues, shapes, and figures of the American urban scene . . . . On a different plane of human expression from that of signs and billboards are the brilliant reds, oranges, yellows, blues, and greens used like a chromatic hymn of praise in Medieval illuminations and stained glass windows. [p. 110-101]