Optical Mixturesthe Bezold Effect

Bridget Riley

Optical Mixtures

• Two or more colors placed next to each other to create a blending, blurring , or neutralizing effect.

Blending: Two colors placed next to each other in small amounts will

seem to create their mixture, Blue+red= violet

Size of color area and value of adjacent colors will determine how successful the illusion is.

Smaller areas of color, and colors that are closer in value tend to create more convincing blends.

Blurring: Two colors of similar hue, value and saturation will seem to blur into one another, making it difficult to determine their edges. This works best with ANALOGOUS colors—

Colors next to one another on the color wheel

Neutralizing: two complements will optically mix to produce gray. This was the theory the pointilists

followed.

George Seurat, Bathers

• In actuality, it doesn’t always work. Many times complements produce OPTICAL VIBRATIONS, rather than optically mixing

Why use optical mixtures rather than just mixing paints?

Creating Optical Mixtures using additive primaries create an effect similar to the light-based color system: the mixture seems more

luminous than traditional paint mixtures.

Red and Green seem to create yellow

Blue and red seem to create magenta

Blue and green seem to create cyan

• Additionally, more luminosity is created than with pigment mixing----similar to the additive system.

• This was the intention behind movements like Pointilism and Impressionism—to create a sense of light by placing colors next to one another rather than mixing colors.

Monet

Monet, Haystacks

Chuck Close, Agnes

Chuck Close

Chuck Close, Studio shot

Richard Anuskiewics

The Bezold Effect

• Wilhelm Bezold, a textile designer discovered that by changing one dominant color in a pattern or composition, it is possible to change the entire ‘look’ and ‘feel’ of the composition.

Does the size of the red bricks seem to change? The size of the grout between the bricks? What happens to the white square? Which seems more stable?

Does our perception of any colors change?

Which seems ‘softer’? How is the Bezold effect related to simultaneous contrast in this example?

• The Bezold Effect will be most effective if the changing colors are very different in hue and/or value—which is why so many examples showed a black/white change.