Chapter 13: Seeing Color: Diversity as a Palette for Teaching

When you walk into a Chuck Close exhibit you must stop a good distance from each huge portrait to be able to see it as a whole, the colors mixing optically in your eyes to a meaningful totality. But as you come closer, you find that the entire picture surface is composed of a multitude of tiny abstract paintings. Like a pixilated computer image, the canvas is covered by an intricate grid of hundreds of tiny squares, each painted painstakingly, with nesting geometric forms in different colors, hues and shades (Figure 13.1). No two squares are exactly alike in the forms or colors that make them up. Some are similar, never replicas, and this fantastic matrix breathes life and vivacity into the work of art.