Isn’t it also interesting that the sepia and black/white filters which are used to represent nostalgia and the past respectively are there to remove color from the world. From that perspective, we are made to believe that the world is more colorful now through these brown-tinged glasses.
Our family likes historical re-enachment and I've noticed in realistic museum settings, how often modern people will say "No, they wouldn't have painted their surroundings that bright blue." Well, yes, actually, they did paint their parlor that bright blue. We've been brainwashed to believe that the past was in black-and-white.
I think it's a part of the great push toward abstraction. Shape & color are inseparable, we figure it a fundamental fact, it's constitutive to our perception.
In a conventional way, the arts remove color by limiting it to grey, thus they emphasize shape only, which is supposed to make objects more obvious as objects, with fewer distractions, for example, because our sentiments are stirred by vivid colors.
Further, the push for abstraction is part of a greater contrast between technology & nature: Nature is unpredictably colorful, but technology is in our control, proved by draining color. Drained of color means object of technical rationality; colorful means, we didn't make it, it's not known to us. No color means liberation, therefore.
Finally, this should lead to a new kind of imagination, perhaps a new kind of humanity, since desire will be rationalized.
Shape can be seen by all who can see, but color cannot. I think the surface level analysis for removing color or limiting color choices is some sort of inclusive advocacy for the colorblind.
I got that sense when attending college that a lot of artistic emphasis was put on to selecting colors and designs that were accessible to all.
A large amount of rationality has infected the arts as a matter of course, since the arts have become taught by university professors rather than through apprenticeships.
That's possible but honestly I doubt that's the main thing. I doubt that avant garde conceptual artists are thinking "I hope this block of coal is colorblind-accessible"
I don't think so, my wife is red-green colorblind and she likes color. Green is her (and my) favorite color. She is actually pretty good with greens, its reds that is more of a problem, maroons can look brown to her.
Some kind of humanitarianism actually is at the core of our art; it's crazy, but it's there. Some attempt to destroy all distinctions of culture in order to bring together the planet, for example. The rage against distinctions is a defining feature of clever types.
Also true that somehow the power modern science has crippled the confidence of artists, because modern science is based uniquely on reversing everything in common experience: We say sunrise, but actually the sun is not moving; we say the table is there, I can touch it, it's solid, but actually it's electro-magnetic repulsion in a field mostly empty of substance, take your pick of the offerings of the carnival of human folly...
Agree on the pervasive lack of color in buildings and interiors, although I’d take gray over the avocado green tile and rust red shag carpeting of my childhood. Hate 70s earth tones.
There’s a lack of ornamentation, too. I’m taking a pottery class and students joke if you don’t get the form right just hide it with embellishments and paint decoration. Maybe modern thinking is that if the form is pure, no color or ornamentation is necessary. You see it in clothing, too — in terms of women’s dress, no embroidery, no beading.
To me it’s sterile. Recently visited Barcelona and all the tourists were marveling at the stonework and iron balconies. They’re not only beautiful, they speak to human makers. No machine is going to make a Gaudi mosaic. In terms of interiors, all that William Morris wallpaper was a human reaction to the Industrial Age. I guess mass production kicked our asses by making human creative touches too expensive.
Movies are not only darker but full of mumbling. Sometimes I have to turn the subtitles on to catch what’s being said. There’s been a big push towards naturalistic acting, which on the one hand is great because it makes characters believable. It doesn’t necessarily make them interesting though. The most riveting performances are exaggerated and weird.
When Nicholson was in The Shining Kubrick encouraged him to be over the top. He balked once and protested that it wasn’t “realistic”. Kubrick responded, “No, but it’s interesting.”
Sir Robert Scruton wrote and lectured extensively on this subject concerning the drabness of modern architecture as compared to the masterful works of the past. His “The Classic Vernacular: Architectural Principles in an Age of Nihilism” is a very lucid work on this very subject.
I brought this up to my Professor and he agreed that everything nowadays is an aesthetic he dubbed as “Sad Beige”.
Even taking stuff like sitcoms, look how much fun they had with colors and fashion in The Nanny- Fran Fine wore a different outfit every episode. Now if it came out today she’d probably be dressed in a drab Hilary Clinton grey business suit.
Some movies in the 50s credited color consultants/advisors, and are quite vivid. Turquoise was a favorite. The advent of color in movies was a big deal after black-and-white films.
I actually see a lot of merit/utility in the boring color palette of a lot of modern stuff. I think it’s a counterbalance to the overstimulating nature of a lot of modern life.
I’d also add that no one in these comments seems to acknowledge how much color is in advertising. Often in things like fast food, gambling, sports… things that feed into more primitive drives and emotions. For them, color is a tool, often to get us to impulsively spend money or consume their content. It may be the association with those ‘lower class’ products that makes luxury goods want to be so bland.
"Fabrics became heavier and their colors darker in comparison to past decades, as Milia Davenport explains in The Book of Costume (1948): “light colors were supplanted by darker, with the metal and fringe-trimmed, heavily upholstered brocade gowns of Mme de Maintenon’s time”"
Strauss-Howe: 1st Turning: 1st Turning: High: American High 1946–1964
"The biggest change in men’s formal wear was the increasing presence of color, as seen in the ad for the bright yellow Arrow shirt (Fig. 20). Tuxedo accessories such as ties and cummerbunds added a pop of color, while less formal eveningwear such as the smoking jacket might come in a color other than black. Color began to creep into daywear shirts and sweaters, as well (Milford-Cottam 48-51). The Hawaiian shirt, first seen in the late forties, continued to be a popular option for men throughout the fifties."
Needless to say, we are currently in another 4th turning.
The basic idea of the 4 turnings is that civilization goes in cycles, much like the 4 seasons or the 'Fate of Empire' Glubb described, which cycle from pioneer optimism -> Monopolist industriousness and hubris -> salaryman keeping-it-going -> decadence and fall. Being in the last terrible era I assume national optimism is at an all time low, but the good news is that if we make it through the other side we'll enter the new pioneer era.
Color used to be hard. Now it's easy. The eternal chase for status involves differentiating oneself from the vulgar. Bright colors are low class now; never mind that they're beautiful.
The point about cars in particular I can back up anecdotally. A friend and I went on a roadtrip recently, and after noting just how many cars were either white or grey, we decided to keep up a tally of drab cars versus colourful ones (as a joke). I can't remember the exact numbers, but the final count worked out to something like a 4- or 5-to-1 ratio in favour of the drabs
This is great, and I'dlove to see more colour too. My living room is a strong blue and we have a mustard yellow couch. It makes me happy every day.
I wonder if some of the beige-ing (I'm thinking about the interior design example mostly) is a reaction to the frantic lives we have now. Those 50 shades of beige rooms are a soothing contrast sometimes. Could also be the idea of luxury. Plain, easily marked furnishings etc give the idea that you can spend money and time on your belongings.
My wife and I have commented many times on the drabness of car colors. I have a bright orange car. I get lots of comments on the color, people like it. I think people want more color, but they think other folks don't and so they opt for safe choices to maximize resale value. You see a similar thing on internal design TV shows. All these white interiors. We have color in all our rooms. My wife's cousin, who is an artist, recently updated her home and she uses bold color in every room. I loved it. Keith and Evan on Bargain Block use lots of color too, perhaps because Keith is also an artist.
Another thought: you also see a massive dumbing down of fonts in modern logos. Johnson & Johnson, Hugo Boss, Next - it's very common. People can only be trusted to read regular block font letters now. Whole books were published in blackletter fonts 50 years ago, and now we're reduced to simplified characters.
Isn’t it also interesting that the sepia and black/white filters which are used to represent nostalgia and the past respectively are there to remove color from the world. From that perspective, we are made to believe that the world is more colorful now through these brown-tinged glasses.
Ha! Thank you, yes, good observation.
Our family likes historical re-enachment and I've noticed in realistic museum settings, how often modern people will say "No, they wouldn't have painted their surroundings that bright blue." Well, yes, actually, they did paint their parlor that bright blue. We've been brainwashed to believe that the past was in black-and-white.
I think it's a part of the great push toward abstraction. Shape & color are inseparable, we figure it a fundamental fact, it's constitutive to our perception.
In a conventional way, the arts remove color by limiting it to grey, thus they emphasize shape only, which is supposed to make objects more obvious as objects, with fewer distractions, for example, because our sentiments are stirred by vivid colors.
Further, the push for abstraction is part of a greater contrast between technology & nature: Nature is unpredictably colorful, but technology is in our control, proved by draining color. Drained of color means object of technical rationality; colorful means, we didn't make it, it's not known to us. No color means liberation, therefore.
Finally, this should lead to a new kind of imagination, perhaps a new kind of humanity, since desire will be rationalized.
Interesting. You may be right.
Shape can be seen by all who can see, but color cannot. I think the surface level analysis for removing color or limiting color choices is some sort of inclusive advocacy for the colorblind.
I got that sense when attending college that a lot of artistic emphasis was put on to selecting colors and designs that were accessible to all.
A large amount of rationality has infected the arts as a matter of course, since the arts have become taught by university professors rather than through apprenticeships.
That's possible but honestly I doubt that's the main thing. I doubt that avant garde conceptual artists are thinking "I hope this block of coal is colorblind-accessible"
Not the main thing, just the derivative. In the meantime, I would quite like that on a T-Shirt.
I don't think so, my wife is red-green colorblind and she likes color. Green is her (and my) favorite color. She is actually pretty good with greens, its reds that is more of a problem, maroons can look brown to her.
Some kind of humanitarianism actually is at the core of our art; it's crazy, but it's there. Some attempt to destroy all distinctions of culture in order to bring together the planet, for example. The rage against distinctions is a defining feature of clever types.
Also true that somehow the power modern science has crippled the confidence of artists, because modern science is based uniquely on reversing everything in common experience: We say sunrise, but actually the sun is not moving; we say the table is there, I can touch it, it's solid, but actually it's electro-magnetic repulsion in a field mostly empty of substance, take your pick of the offerings of the carnival of human folly...
Agree on the pervasive lack of color in buildings and interiors, although I’d take gray over the avocado green tile and rust red shag carpeting of my childhood. Hate 70s earth tones.
There’s a lack of ornamentation, too. I’m taking a pottery class and students joke if you don’t get the form right just hide it with embellishments and paint decoration. Maybe modern thinking is that if the form is pure, no color or ornamentation is necessary. You see it in clothing, too — in terms of women’s dress, no embroidery, no beading.
To me it’s sterile. Recently visited Barcelona and all the tourists were marveling at the stonework and iron balconies. They’re not only beautiful, they speak to human makers. No machine is going to make a Gaudi mosaic. In terms of interiors, all that William Morris wallpaper was a human reaction to the Industrial Age. I guess mass production kicked our asses by making human creative touches too expensive.
Movies are not only darker but full of mumbling. Sometimes I have to turn the subtitles on to catch what’s being said. There’s been a big push towards naturalistic acting, which on the one hand is great because it makes characters believable. It doesn’t necessarily make them interesting though. The most riveting performances are exaggerated and weird.
When Nicholson was in The Shining Kubrick encouraged him to be over the top. He balked once and protested that it wasn’t “realistic”. Kubrick responded, “No, but it’s interesting.”
Sir Robert Scruton wrote and lectured extensively on this subject concerning the drabness of modern architecture as compared to the masterful works of the past. His “The Classic Vernacular: Architectural Principles in an Age of Nihilism” is a very lucid work on this very subject.
I brought this up to my Professor and he agreed that everything nowadays is an aesthetic he dubbed as “Sad Beige”.
Even taking stuff like sitcoms, look how much fun they had with colors and fashion in The Nanny- Fran Fine wore a different outfit every episode. Now if it came out today she’d probably be dressed in a drab Hilary Clinton grey business suit.
Good observation. Thanks.
That's why I don't watch many movies anymore. It's all dark and somber.
I remember the world being brilliant colors and bright light. The movies, photos, and paintings showed it. Now, it's just dark.
Some movies in the 50s credited color consultants/advisors, and are quite vivid. Turquoise was a favorite. The advent of color in movies was a big deal after black-and-white films.
Lindyman has written about it extensively.
https://lindynewsletter.beehiiv.com/p/culture-stuck
https://lindynewsletter.beehiiv.com/p/refinement-culture
https://lindynewsletter.beehiiv.com/p/hottest-new-trend-publishing
https://lindynewsletter.beehiiv.com/p/vulgar-wave
https://lindynewsletter.beehiiv.com/p/happened-baseball
That first one on stuck culture is pretty lame. Algorithms determine culture? I don't think so.
I actually see a lot of merit/utility in the boring color palette of a lot of modern stuff. I think it’s a counterbalance to the overstimulating nature of a lot of modern life.
I’d also add that no one in these comments seems to acknowledge how much color is in advertising. Often in things like fast food, gambling, sports… things that feed into more primitive drives and emotions. For them, color is a tool, often to get us to impulsively spend money or consume their content. It may be the association with those ‘lower class’ products that makes luxury goods want to be so bland.
It's a lot of cross referencing, but the bright/dark colors do seem to line up roughly with Strauss-Howe's 4 turnings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory#Timing_of_generations_and_turnings
Whenever it's in the 4th turning colors get drabber.
https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1680-1689/
Strauss-Howe: 4th Turning: Crisis: Glorious Revolution 1675–1704
"Fabrics became heavier and their colors darker in comparison to past decades, as Milia Davenport explains in The Book of Costume (1948): “light colors were supplanted by darker, with the metal and fringe-trimmed, heavily upholstered brocade gowns of Mme de Maintenon’s time”"
When it's the 1st turning colors get brighter
https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1870-1879/
Strauss-Howe: 1st Turning: High: Reconstruction, Gilded Age 1865–1886
"During the 1870s, women’s clothing became increasingly complex, colorful, and restrictive, while menswear was marked by an industrious sobriety."
The most recent 1st turning
https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1950-1959/
Strauss-Howe: 1st Turning: 1st Turning: High: American High 1946–1964
"The biggest change in men’s formal wear was the increasing presence of color, as seen in the ad for the bright yellow Arrow shirt (Fig. 20). Tuxedo accessories such as ties and cummerbunds added a pop of color, while less formal eveningwear such as the smoking jacket might come in a color other than black. Color began to creep into daywear shirts and sweaters, as well (Milford-Cottam 48-51). The Hawaiian shirt, first seen in the late forties, continued to be a popular option for men throughout the fifties."
Needless to say, we are currently in another 4th turning.
The basic idea of the 4 turnings is that civilization goes in cycles, much like the 4 seasons or the 'Fate of Empire' Glubb described, which cycle from pioneer optimism -> Monopolist industriousness and hubris -> salaryman keeping-it-going -> decadence and fall. Being in the last terrible era I assume national optimism is at an all time low, but the good news is that if we make it through the other side we'll enter the new pioneer era.
Color used to be hard. Now it's easy. The eternal chase for status involves differentiating oneself from the vulgar. Bright colors are low class now; never mind that they're beautiful.
The point about cars in particular I can back up anecdotally. A friend and I went on a roadtrip recently, and after noting just how many cars were either white or grey, we decided to keep up a tally of drab cars versus colourful ones (as a joke). I can't remember the exact numbers, but the final count worked out to something like a 4- or 5-to-1 ratio in favour of the drabs
It’s no accident that grey is also the colour of
concrete
asphalt
aluminium
Everything is being stripped of its connection to life and living things: the trend is towards an exclusively built environment occupied by machines.
This is great, and I'dlove to see more colour too. My living room is a strong blue and we have a mustard yellow couch. It makes me happy every day.
I wonder if some of the beige-ing (I'm thinking about the interior design example mostly) is a reaction to the frantic lives we have now. Those 50 shades of beige rooms are a soothing contrast sometimes. Could also be the idea of luxury. Plain, easily marked furnishings etc give the idea that you can spend money and time on your belongings.
My wife and I have commented many times on the drabness of car colors. I have a bright orange car. I get lots of comments on the color, people like it. I think people want more color, but they think other folks don't and so they opt for safe choices to maximize resale value. You see a similar thing on internal design TV shows. All these white interiors. We have color in all our rooms. My wife's cousin, who is an artist, recently updated her home and she uses bold color in every room. I loved it. Keith and Evan on Bargain Block use lots of color too, perhaps because Keith is also an artist.
Life is too short to live without color.
Another thought: you also see a massive dumbing down of fonts in modern logos. Johnson & Johnson, Hugo Boss, Next - it's very common. People can only be trusted to read regular block font letters now. Whole books were published in blackletter fonts 50 years ago, and now we're reduced to simplified characters.