Gray is a plastic color achieved in pigment by mixing a neutral (neutral - a relatively equal combination of the primaries, which are red, yellow and blue) and a white; in light - by a neutral filter (ex. clouds). Due to its neutral position on the chart, it can respond beautifully - in subtle or dramatic contrasts - to its environment of surrounding colors or lights.
Often the color grey can go unnoticed, blending into neighboring whites or blacks, whether it be in a shadow or body-color (body-color - the color of an object in stable natural light). But because colors can only be perceived in their relativity to others colors, in nature or human manipulation, when placed next to a saturated color, grey can both augment the color's vividness, and, due to the law of opposite colors (please see a basic color wheel), the greys own tone is accented, thus giving it a slight color 'glow'. This phenomena can be observed during particularly lit cloudy days, during sunsets and an dusk. Artists and fashion designers, and other people sensitive to color, adore a particular combination of a warm ('warm' in color language refers to a noticeable presence of yellow) gray with a pastel pink, and consider it a classic color combination. Joseph Albers, a painter and author of numerous essays, including a book, which now is a color theory classroom staple - "Interaction of Color", has studied and revered gray in his work, though most of his own paintings use primaries.
In our culture, at times, gray carries with it a stigma of desolation and plainness - the grey of the ash in a burnt-down forrest, of a concrete industrial complex, of a cold rainy day. But with a sensitive application, this color can bring out the potential of others and serve as its own rich colorfield. Since the Industrial Revolution, many artists, architects and designers have fallen in love with gray both as a delicate surprising color and as a symbol of the new industrial beauty. The Bauhaus' revolutionary use of bare concrete along with exposed beams at first shocked the public, used to the beauty of a building be represented by warm wood of the country home, the white marble of Classical Greece, or the gold-leaf friezes of the Renaissance and the Baroque. Now the Bauhaus aesthetic is in the very bloodstream of contemporary architecture and public taste (although we still love our log cabins). In his early surreal horror-film "Eraserhead", David Lynch sets the story in the concrete labyrinth of industrial L.A. He goes as far as recording the entire film in black and white, in order to give gray full reign.
Please enjoy your day. If the weather forecast favors you so and its overcast and raining, notice how bright those green bushes suddenly look.
other gray thoughts:
an old woman's grey hair, a hare, the road, storm clouds, dust, wolves, dirty snow, the ocean, ice, rocks, gray eyes, my cat, the brain, everything just before it gets totally dark, moth powder,
