The use of color in art has traditionally had a fairly codified set of meaning.
For example, red has almost inevitably been related to fire, blood, and danger.
Black has been indicative of death, emptiness and mourning.
White has been the indisputable sign of purity.
The use of color in contemporary works has often rejected these traditional meanings.
Instead, color can be imbued with personal and unconventional meanings.
The freedom from color-induced expectations has been eagerly explored by abstract painters.
As Marcia Tucker has observed succinctly in her article The Structure of Color, "the possibilities of response to abstract works...
are more varied, since we are not bound by the color 'expectations' we had in looking at figurative works; there is no area that should consist of a particular hue.
" The inherent power and strength of color can therefore be revealed in the viewer's emotional response to the color itself.
For American color field painters including Helen Frankenthaler (1928- ), Morris Louis (1912-1962) and Kenneth Noland (1924- ), color became both form and subject.
In Frankenthaler's abstract landscapes, including works as diverse as The Human Edge and Mountains and Sea, the locales aren't specific, but the colors and shapes reflect the rhythm and essential qualities of nature.
In The Human Edge, the deep blue at the lower edge is an obvious reference to water.
The thin, dark shape just above the blue horizontal is immediately reminiscent of a seashore or landmass.
The large open space above the "land" is atmospheric.
At the top of the painting, perhaps where clouds might be expected, Frankenthaler has painted three irregular, hard-edged rectangles in gray, orange and pink.
The combination of colors and shapes is intriguing when considered with the evocative title.
Is the edge of the seashore/landmass the "human edge" or are the oddly inverted rectangles in the "sky" the "human edge" in contrast with the more naturalistic edge created by the blue and brown horizontals? In contrast with the definitive shapes and colors that Frankenthaler utilized in The Human Edge, her well-acclaimed Mountains and Sea employs a very different approach.
This work was painted after Frankenthaler had visited Nova Scotia.
Not only has she utilized aquatic blues and greens as noted earlier, but elements of nature are also mimicked in the technique of spilling and splashing and in the results of that technique.
There are "splashes" of color throughout the work and a sense of the organic process of water pooling and evaporating.
The rhythm of constant movement encountered at the ocean's edge is also reflected in the shapes piled up in the center of the painting.
These fleeting shapes appear ready to crash down onto the "sand" at any moment.
As these two paintings demonstrate, the languages of color and shape are intrinsically related to each other and to natural themes in Frankenthaler's works.
In fact, even in Frankenthaler's most abstract works, her shapes are fundamentally related to the colors themselves.
Thus, the combination of colors and shapes in Frankenthaler's works operate on multiple levels.
Not only are they perceptual, but the color-shape elements are also capable of functioning on the realistic and emotional levels as well.