{"id":2105,"date":"2010-12-16T00:32:33","date_gmt":"2010-12-16T05:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=2105"},"modified":"2010-12-16T00:32:33","modified_gmt":"2010-12-16T05:32:33","slug":"color-the-fourth-dimension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=2105","title":{"rendered":"Color: The Fourth Dimension<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

From time to time while browsing fractal art on the internet I’ve seen images that greatly impressed me and yet when subjecting them to a second, more critical evaluation, found myself unable to defend them as anything more significant than just eye-candy.\u00a0 What all of these images had in common was exceptionally good color.<\/p>\n

Upon reflection, over numerous years, I’ve come to the conclusion that color is an element of visual imagery that is best described as a fourth dimension because I think the role that color plays in the “architecture” of an image can be just as great as all the other fundamental parameters that, taken together, constitute the “length, width and depth” of an image.<\/p>\n

There are artists who consistently make images that draw heavily on the subtle but effective properties of color.\u00a0 Artists who concentrate on color are what I would describe as “visual musicians”.\u00a0 I call them that because I don’t know how to relate what they do to what other artists do and like a great tune, it’s an undeniably pleasant thing.\u00a0 It’s a wonderful thing, even if I don’t understand it.\u00a0 Call it beauty, but I think\u00a0 the term, beauty, is often just a word for when we run out<\/em> of words.<\/p>\n

In the digital realm color can easily seen as an independent aspect of an image because we can easily change it independently of everything else in the image.\u00a0 Color is a global property and those are the kinds of properties that are most easily manipulated in computer graphics programs.\u00a0 The little, detailed kinds of things you still have to work with by hand.\u00a0 But you can change the entire color gradient or palette of a fractal or rotate it’s hue with just a few clicks in a graphics program.\u00a0 It’s no wonder then that some artists chose to put the emphasis on color: digital tools give them “color-powers”.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, nothing talks about color better than color itself; here’s a few images to illustrate the point:<\/p>\n

~Click images to view full-size on original site~<\/em><\/p>\n

Super Color from FractalWorks<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Indescribable by Schimkent (Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

What better example could there be of the effect of color in fractal art than a super-rich color spiral like this.\u00a0 Made by Schimkent (Flickr screen name for Kent Schimke) using Duncan Champney’s Mac program, FractalWorks<\/a>.\u00a0 The turning of the spiral places colors that would otherwise be farther apart in the gradient\/palette right beside each other.<\/p>\n

How is this spiral different from the many Fractal Universe calendar spirals which I think I once said reminded me of patterns on disposable party plates?\u00a0 Well, that’s the challenge of evaluating works “of the fourth dimension;”<\/em> you just have to look at the image and see for yourself what the difference is.<\/p>\n

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3D view of Apr02wma1b by Schimkent<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s all about that Blue in the top left corner.\u00a0 The colored loops come close to it and challenge it, even holding Blue in their center.\u00a0 The outcome is harmonious yet that subtle gray window screen texture shows that there’s more to Blue than they realize.<\/p>\n

What I’ve chosen here are images whose color properties contribute enormously to the overall impression of the image; they’re examples of the effect<\/em> of color.\u00a0 They’re not just “nicely colored,” the coloring has a powerful effect on the rest of the image and magnifies the\u00a0 it.<\/p>\n

Subdued and Sophisticated Color<\/strong><\/p>\n

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20090716-1 by Samuel Monnier<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s not all about saturated<\/em> color.\u00a0 This one here by Samuel Monnier from his website, Algorithmic Worlds<\/a>, shows how a less saturated, more subdued color can be just as expressive.\u00a0 Of course there’s more to this image than just it’s subtle coloring, but the coloring compliments the quiet, ancient and weathered patterns in the ground and sky.\u00a0 Every time I look at this I think of ancient Egypt and the Pyramids.\u00a0 The wind carries away the sand, filling the sky with yellow dust and leaving bare the ancient workings underground.<\/p>\n

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20090715-1 by Samuel Monnier<\/p><\/div>\n

Such colored details.\u00a0 Details are the hallmark of Samuel Monnier’s images which is why almost all of them are presented in zoomable fashion via a flash applet on his Algorithmic Worlds site, as we’ll see in the next one.<\/p>\n

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20100924-1 by Samuel Monnier<\/p><\/div>\n

See the top left “planet?”.\u00a0 In the image below I zoom into there and take a screenshot of the resulting detail.\u00a0 This is a fabulous example of color as well as algorithmic color (he didn’t paint this by hand).\u00a0 Every planet is different and even in the deepest zooms there’s still more planets below.\u00a0 It’s a bit like real astronomy: the more closely you look at one thing, the more things you notice around it.<\/p>\n

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20100924-1 (detail) by Samuel Monnier<\/p><\/div>\n

The colors are not so subdued in this detail as they are in the other images.\u00a0 Compare this detail view with Kent Schimke’s spiral image shown at the very beginning.\u00a0 They are quite different and yet each one thrives on color.\u00a0 Monnier’s is a very detailed color while Schimke’s is broader, thicker, smoother color.\u00a0 Of course, they’re made differently: Monnier’s uses his trademark “pattern-piling”<\/a> while Schimke is using, I assume, a fractal formula rendered in FractalWorks with it’s exceptional, and very smooth, 3D rendering features.<\/p>\n

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Spherical Feedback by Syntopia (Flickr)<\/p><\/div>\n

Another fine example of subdued coloring.\u00a0 The structures in the image are quite plain and as the title suggests, are repetitive like feedback.\u00a0 It’s color that takes the lead role in this image turning what would otherwise be a mere technical example of the features of the program Structure Synth<\/a> into something much more creative and noteworthy.<\/p>\n

Kleinian Kolors<\/strong><\/p>\n

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indra611a by Jos Leys<\/p><\/div>\n

If you’re at all interested in color you could not possibly have missed the Kleinian <\/a>images by Jos Leys, some of which are almost seven years old now.\u00a0 It’s hard to imagine these things rendered in grayscale.\u00a0 The above one is a special example<\/a>, although typical of the way Jos uses color to compliment the Kleinian structures: it’s been designed in Ultra Fractal<\/a> and then rendered in POV-Ray, a very sophisticated ray-tracing program.\u00a0 The result looks like a photo of a real sculpture but is in fact just a very sophisticated digital rendering.<\/p>\n

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indra277 by Jos Leys<\/p><\/div>\n

Here’s a perfect example of Jos Leys’ exquisite, jewellery-like, Indra’s Pearls images.\u00a0 The color seems so natural and inseparable from the underlying mathematical “architecture.”\u00a0 Could you adequately describe this image in words only without referring to the color?<\/p>\n

Color World<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Junkyard, by primitive mind (Deviant Art)<\/p><\/div>\n

Keeping with my theme of the power of color, here’s something similar and yet quite different, too.\u00a0 This image, I’m going to make a guess, was created by some very careful layering of a number of 3D mandelbulb\/mandelbox images.\u00a0 The result is not just a blending of the 3D structures but also a blending of the colors<\/em>.\u00a0 With the possible exception of Samuel Monnier’s “planet” image, these images by primitive mind (Deviant Art screen name) have what I’d say is the most sophisticated range of colors both in hue and saturation.\u00a0 Look at the bottom of the one above and you’ll see in that little patch of “sunlight” in the bottom left saturated color while in the rest of the image it’s mostly more subdued colors and a very wide range of them.<\/p>\n

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Under the sea by primitive mind (Deviant Art)<\/p><\/div>\n

Images like these could not be saved as 256 color indexed pngs without changing them enormously or using complex dithering.\u00a0 They simply have too many colors to do that very well.\u00a0 They almost look like paintings, really.\u00a0 And from a technical perspective, I’ve never seen mandelbulb\/mandelbox images with such creative color.\u00a0 Like all the others, if you click these you’ll see the larger size image on the site where I found it.<\/p>\n

Seriously, just color?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is color a serious thing?\u00a0 I guess it depends on what you think is serious.\u00a0 Some think the life and death world of social and political issues is serious subject matter<\/a> while others might find that a painful distraction from their study of water lilies<\/a>. The work of some famous artists seems to revolve around careful choices of color.\u00a0 Andy Warhol, in his famous silk-screen images experimented with unique color combinations.\u00a0 Silk screening allows for this kind of experimentation just like computer graphics programs do; you can quickly see what different inks look like by switching them and making a new print.<\/p>\n

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Marilyn, by Andy Warhol, who for many years could not walk without the aid of Color Crutches<\/p><\/div>\n

Is there an art form that is nothing more than a language of shape and color?\u00a0 Should we call it “Lego-land” or “Visual Philosophy?”\u00a0 The graphically simple things like shape and color I believe can sometimes leave a very sophisticated impression in our mind.\u00a0 Stephen Ferguson<\/a>, the well-known fractal programmer, once made a profound statement –about a sphere– that it had infinite<\/em> points of reflection.\u00a0 The ultimate mirror.\u00a0 Something to think about next time you look at “a shiny ball.”\u00a0 Seriously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From time to time while browsing fractal art on the internet I’ve seen images that greatly impressed me and yet when subjecting them to a second, more critical evaluation, found myself unable to defend them as anything more significant than just eye-candy.\u00a0 What all of these images had in common was exceptionally good color. Upon … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/color01.jpg?fit=480%2C482&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3103,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=3103","url_meta":{"origin":2105,"position":0},"title":"An Art Form of Shape and Color","author":"Tim","date":"5 October, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"By looking at all these weird fish images my hope is that you'll stop seeing them as fish and start seeing them simply as objects of shape and color. ~Click on images to view full size on original site~ They have no need of being real, we can relate to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/Opisthoproctus_soleatus.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3632,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=3632","url_meta":{"origin":2105,"position":1},"title":"Phase 3: The Relentless Pursuit of Color, Shape and Pattern","author":"Tim","date":"20 December, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"We've all watched or taken part in, at sometime or another, that great quest to \"define\" fractal art.\u00a0 Although few members of the fractal world seem very interested in this sort of \"constitutional debate\" everyone operates with at least some sort of understanding of a boundary around fractal art.\u00a0 The\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=3632#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/pollock01.jpg?fit=460%2C362&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":923,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=923","url_meta":{"origin":2105,"position":2},"title":"Kandid’s Cellular Automata and the Creativity of Computational Art","author":"Tim","date":"13 March, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Of all the things that the Genetic Art java program Kandid does, I had always found (until recently) it's cellular automata features to be the most enticing and the most disappointing. The cellular automata, true to their synthetic, space age name, looked very computer-ish and although the high contrast color\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=923#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/DirectLca_RGB_g6okgclp_g6okgd84_x427_y427.png?fit=427%2C427&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=36","url_meta":{"origin":2105,"position":3},"title":"uscomic.8bf","author":"Tim","date":"28 August, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been spending alot of time in my garbage can lately.Never before has it been such a delight to retieve stuff I thought was worthless, even the things stuck to the bottom of the can. I feed them into the uscomic.8bf machine and out comes instant Strange Tales and Journey\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=36#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":406,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=406","url_meta":{"origin":2105,"position":4},"title":"Fractal Art, Phase Two","author":"Tim","date":"3 September, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"What? You didn't know even know there was a Phase One? Well, let me begin there, then. At the dawn of fractal art.Phase One, the first stage of fractal art, has been oriented around software. The big developments in fractal art came from developments in the software that made it.\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=406#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ambaka.com\/blog\/25\/phase2.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":584,"url":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/?p=584","url_meta":{"origin":2105,"position":5},"title":"Java Applets: Superintelligent Shades of the Color Blue","author":"Tim","date":"11 December, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Somewhere in the cosmos, he said, along with all the planets inhabited by humanoids, reptiloids, fishoids, walking treeoids and superintelligent shades of the colour blue...\" --Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy What could be more intelligent and etherial than a clever java applet like this one made by\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/orbittrap.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/jhlabs01.png?fit=395%2C398&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2105"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2129,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2105\/revisions\/2129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orbittrap.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}