Colorito is the term coined during the Renaissance to describe painting in which color dominates, and is used for sensual expressive purposes.
The greatest example of colorito in Renaissance painting was Titian.
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| Titian, Euopa and the Bull |
Titian’s innovation with color may have been the result of innate talent… or perhaps it was the fluke of where he lived.
Titian happened to live in Venice when it was the center of pigment trade in Italy. Venice was a port city in the Byzantine empire, a city of colors and spices, where commerce brought all the richest colors necessary for creating sumptuous effects. Titian made full use of them. Not only that, but the reflected light from the city’s rippling waterways created an effect on colors very different from the light in other places. If Titian had been born 120 miles away in Florence, where rival painters championed Disegno (drawing or design) over colorito, his art would probably have developed very differently. In Florence artists painted frescoes on plaster, but frescoes would not survive for long in the waterways of Venice. Titian achieved his color effects with oil glazes.
Centuries later, Howard Pyle worked as an illustrator in the colorless world of 19th century illustration. He labored over hundreds of black and white illustrations, often reproduced as wood engravings. But by the end of the 19th century, new technologies appeared on the horizon, holding out the promise of accurate full color reproduction.
Christine Podmaniczky, associate curator at the BrandywineMuseum wrote,
in its earliest stages, four-color printing had several drawbacks. The new process required special ink-receptive paper that could be printed on one side only. it also required exact registration of the four plates. Certain colors…were difficult to duplicate with…inks available at the time….Nevertheless, by 1903, Howard Pyle confidently instructed his students to develop their skills in color painting because cost-effective and accurate color reproduction would soon dominate the printing industry.
Pyle had the vision to recognize the opportunities of that time in history. Like a prisoner released from a long internment, he began painting pictures that exploded with color unprecedented in published illustrations.
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| Pyle, the Buccaneer, 1905 |
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| Pyle, Attack on a Galleon |
In the 1950s, graphic designer Bob Peak looked like he was on a path to an unremarkable career as a bland commercial artist.
Then scientists developed a new set of brilliant colors, which dropped a whole new toolbox in his lap. Simultaneously, 1960s social changes created a huge new market for pictures with intense, bold colors.
