When it comes to picking the "right" color, research has found that predicting consumer reaction to color appropriateness in relation to the product is far more important than the individual color itself. So, if Harley owners buy the product in order to feel rugged, you could assume that the pink + glitter edition wouldn't sell all that well.
Psychologist and Stanford professor Jennifer Aaker has conducted studies on this very topic via research on Dimensions of Brand Personality, and her studies have found five core dimensions that play a role in a brand's personality:
(Brands can sometimes cross between two traits, but they are mostly dominated by one. High fashion clothing feels sophisticated, camping gear feels rugged.)
Additional research has shown that there is a real connection between the use of colors and customers' perceptions of a brand's personality.
Certain colors DO broadly align with specific traits (e.g., brown with ruggedness, purple with sophistication, and red with excitement). But nearly every academic study on colors and branding will tell you that it's far more important for your brand's colors to support the personality you want to portray instead of trying to align with stereotypical color associations.
Consider the inaccuracy of making broad statements such as "green means calm." The context is missing; sometimes green is used to brand environmental issues such as Timberland'sG.R.E.E.N standard, but other times it's meant to brand financial spaces such as Mint.com.
And while brown may be useful for a rugged appeal (think Saddleback Leather), when positioned in another context brown can be used to create a warm, inviting feeling (Thanksgiving) or to stir your appetite (every chocolate commercial you've ever seen).
Bottom line: I can't offer you an easy, clear-cut set of guidelines for choosing your brand's colors, but I can assure you that the context you're working within is an absolutely essential consideration.
It's the feeling, mood, and image that your brand creates that play a role in persuasion. Be sure to recognize that colors only come into play when they can be used to match a brand's desired personality (i.e., the use of white to communicate Apple's love of clean, simple design).
Without this context, choosing one color over another doesn't make much sense, and there is very little evidence to support that 'orange' will universally make people purchase a product more often than 'silver'.
Art History 101: Some information has come to light about the artist Paul Cezanne's diabetes. His relationship with his wife Hortense Fiquet was stormy although he left the estate inherited from his father to her and their son Paul. She and the son lived in Paris and Cezanne visited them until his urge to paint returned and he left for his beloved Aix-en-Provence to paint.
Self-portrait by Cezanne
Photo of Paul Cezanne
Paul Cezanne was born on January 19, 1839, in Aix-en-Provence, France. While in school, he enrolled in the free drawing academy in Aix, which he attended intermittently for several years. In 1858, he graduated from the College Bourbon, where he had become an intimate friend of his fellow student Emile Zola. Cezanne entered the law school of the University of Aix in 1859 to placate his father but abandoned his studies to join Zola in Paris in 1861. For the next twenty years, Cezanne divided his time between the Midi and Paris. In the capital, he briefly attended the Atelier Suisse with Camille Pissarro, whose art later came to influence his own. In 1862, Cezanne began long friendships with Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. His paintings were included in the 1863 Salon des Refusses, which displayed works not accepted by the jury of the official Paris Salon. The Salon itself rejected Cezanne's submissions each year from 1864 to 1869.
In 1870, following the declaration of the Franco-Prussian War, Cezanne left Paris for Aix-en-Provence and then nearby L'Estaque, where he continued to paint. He made the first of several visits to Pontoise in 1872. While there, he worked alongside Pissarro. He participated in the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874. In general the impressionists did not have much commercial success, and Cezanne's works received the harshest critical commentary. From 1876 to 1879, his works were again rejected for the Salon. Cezanne showed again with the Impressionists in 1877 in their third exhibition. At that time, Georges Rivire was one of the few critics to support his art. In 1882, the Salon accepted his work for the first and only time. Beginning in 1883, Cezanne resided in the South of France, returning to Paris occasionally. In 1886, he became embittered over what he took to be thinly disguised references to his own failures in one of Zola's novels. As a result he broke off relations with his oldest supporter.
In the same year, he inherited his father's wealth and finally, at the age of 47, became financially independent, but socially he remained quite isolated. He continued living comfortably in his father's estate, Jas de Bouffan, in Provence. That same year he married his girlfriend, Hortense, and they had one son, Paul Cezanne Jr. But Cezanne himself was not comfortable because his diabetes caused serious complications, leading to much physical and emotional suffering. His wife and son left and moved to Paris, but Cezanne made an effort to reconcile with his estranged wife in the 1890's taking her and their son on a trip to Switzerland. The attempted reconcilitation failed. Cezanne gave his father's estate to his wife and son, and turned to painting, expressing himself in work. In 1901 he bought land on an isolated road in Provence, and built himself a studio. There he continued painting, and made many of his most valuable paintings.
For many years Cezanne was known only to his old impressionist colleagues and to a few younger radical postimpressionist artists, including the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh and the French painter Paul Gauguin. In 1895, however, Ambroise Vollard, an ambitious Paris art dealer, arranged a show of Cezanne's works and over the next few years promoted them successfully. By 1904, Cezanne was featured in a major official exhibition. On October 15, 1906, Cezanne caught a cold while painting outdoors, during a heavy rainstorm. Drenched and chilled he walked toward his home, but collapsed on the road, most likely suffering from a diabetic coma. He was found by a driver of a laundry cart, and was taken home. Paul Cezanne died of pneumonia and complication from diabetes, on October 22, 1906, in Provence, and was laid to rest in the old cemetery of his hometown of Aix-en-Provence, France. By the time of his death, Cezanne had attained the status of a legendary figure.
An exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art features 24 portraits of the French painter’s wife, but her mystery remains intact.
Anyone familiar with Paul Cézanne’s portraits will recognizethe solemn woman with the oval face, tight lips, and large dark eyes, her dark hair invariably
pulled back and parted in the center. But very few know this woman as the
French painter’s wife and muse, Hortense Fiquet.
Fiquet has been largely overlooked, if not outright disdained, by critics and art historians. But a new exhibition, Madame Cézanne at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, reexamines her influence on the Post-Impressionist master’s work.
The exhibition brings together for the first time 24 of the 29 portraits of Hortense Fiquet—oil and watercolor paintings as well as graphite sketches—in an unprecedented tribute to the woman who sat for more portraits than any of the artist’s other models.
To the untrained eye, there are few details distinguishing one portrait of Cézanne’s wife from the next. Her facial expression does not change considerably (she never smiles); she is frequently depicted in the same dress or coat; she is often leaning forward, as though about to fall off her seat. And, with the exception of one painting from Cézanne’s infamous “red chair” series in which she is sewing, there is no narrative.
Paul Cézanne (French, Aix-en-Provence 1839–1906 Aix-en-Provence) Madame Cézanne in a Red Armchair About 1877 Oil on canvas 72.4 x 55.9 cm (28 1/2 x 22 in.) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Museum of Fine Arts)
Hortense has long been shrouded in mystery and critical contempt, in part because so little is known about her. We know that she was 19 and working as either a model or a bookbinder when, in 1869, she met Cézanne in Paris. Three years later, the couple’s only child, Paul, was born.
But Cézanne kept their romance and partnership hidden from his family until their marriage in 1886 in Aix-en-Provence, a union to secure young Paul’s inheritance rather than celebrate the couple’s love. (When Cézanne wrote of Hortense in letters to friends like Emile Zola, it was frequently about going to great lengths to prevent his family—particularly his father—from knowing
of her existence.)
With so little biographical information about Hortense toextrapolate from, art historians frequently projected character analyseson Madame Cézanne based
on her physical appearance: plain-looking, distant, unfeeling, and ill-humored.
Cézanne’s family believed her to be profligate with her husband’s finances and referred to her as “The Reine Hortense.”
Roger Fry, an early 19th century English art
critic and fan of Cézanne, blamed Hortense for
her husband’s uninspiring landscapes. “Perhaps that sour-looking bitch of a Madame counts for something in the tremendous repression that
took place,” he wrote in a 1925 letter to a friend.
Such observations cemented Hortense’s unflattering reputation; Cézanne’s family
believed her to be profligate with her husband’s finances and referred to her as “The Reine Hortense.” She was also crudely nicknamed “La Boule,” a reference to a ball
and chain.
It wasn’t until recently that her legacy as the artist’s subject has been revisited—most notably in Susan Sidlauskas’ 2009 book, Cézanne’s Other: The Portraits
of Hortense—and deemed crucial both to Cézanne’s development as an artist
and our understanding of his work.
The exhibition at the Met also showcases Hortense’s dedication to her role as subject and muse—posing for twenty years, sitting for hours without moving—even if she did not inspire Cézanne in a particularly romantic way. The few portraits that convey tenderness were painted early on in their relationship, including a tiny oil-on-canvas in which Hortense wears only a pendant, her
dark hair cascading down her back.
Paul Cézanne (French, Aix-en-Provence 18391906 Aix-en-Provence) Madame Cézanne (Hortense Fiquet, 18501922) in a Red Dress 188890 Oil on canvas 45 7/8 x 35 1/4 in. ( 116.5 x 89.5 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ittleson Jr. Purchase Fund, 1962 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ittleson Jr. Purchase Fund, 1962)
Others speak to the constancy of their relationship and how Cézanne preferred working with motifs that were familiar to him, like the landscape of Mont
Sainte-Victoire in Aix-en-Provence and various fruits. (Hortense was no exception). That familiarity allowed him to delve deeper into his work, often obsessively, whether while exploring color relationships or perfecting composition.
We see this in his numerous later (1880s) portraits of Hortense wearing a red dress, her expression slightly different in each one, as well as in another series
of her seated in a red chair. One of the red chair paintings elicited fulsome
praise of the painter (and his subject) from poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who
gushed that she “memorized [the painting], digit by digit,” in a 1907 letter to a friend:
“Seated in the red armchair, which is a personality in its own right, is a woman, her hands in the lap of a dress with broad vertical stripes…In the brightness of
the face, the proximity of all these colors has been exploited for a simple modeling of form and features: even the brown of the hair roundly pinned up above the temples and the smooth brown of the eyes has to express itself
against its surroundings. It’s as if every part were aware of all the others…”
The exhibit ultimately reveals much more about Cézanne—his exacting
technique, the way he perceived structure in terms of color relationships—
than it does about his muse. Madame Cézanne is ultimately about the figure in the portraits rather than the person, who remains a tantalizing enigma.
This exhibit reveals 24 of the known portraits of Hortense. It will be shown at
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City through May 2015.
I am very impressed by Maria Killam's interior design skills. She is showing the following decor as trend-setting for our new year. It will be interesting to see how accurate her predictions are.
Gold has moved from lighting and hardware to furniture.
Just like all that lime washed furniture will eventually be dated, same with the gold. Just don't fill your house with it from top to bottom and you can enjoy this trend in your home.
I'm loving it probably because it's in the realm of my favourite colour, yellow.
I realized this Christmas that I really need to refresh my linens for entertaining, I did break down and buy this flatware from West Elm.
Jewel Tone Shades.
Colour is still bright but it's getting richer and more dramatic.
This is not a new trend but I've been thinking about this a lot and this is one trend I see as a classic. Once you turn one wall into a pantry which takes care of the storage (if you have the room to do that of course) who would ever want to go back to upper cabinetry?
Is watercolour the new chevron? I guess we'll wait and see.
- See more at: http://www.mariakillam.com/trends2015/?inf_contact_key=69a9c40f88b0bd58b1cecf101e57000e171fd3f931d16d1c6af1f45da6a8f4f6#sthash.SHbRfYKN.dpuf
Art History will be the theme of many posts in the New Year. Happy 2015, dear color-enthusiasts!
(noun) - Portraits are works of art that record the likenesses of humans or animals that are alive or have been alive. A posthumous portrait (a portrait rendered after the death of the subject) can be achieved by either copying another portrait or following instructions of the person who commissions the work.
Robert Rosenblum as the Marquis de Pastoret
2006 Oil on Linen 40" x 33"
by Kathleen Gilje
Usually, a portrait records the subject's features. A portrait of the art historian Robert Rosenblum (1927-2006) by Kathleen Gilje captures the sitter's face and celebrates his outstanding Ingres scholarship through this appropriation of Ingres' portrait of the Comte de Pastoret (1791-1857). Ingres' portrait was completed in 1826 (Art Institute of Chicago). Gilje's portrait was completed in 2006, several months before Rosenblum's death in December. Robert Rosenblum collaborated on the choice of appropriation.
Here, This Is Stieglitz
1915 brush and ink, pasted printed paper
on paperboard 30" x 20"
by Francis Picabia
Sometimes a portrait includes inanimate objects that refer to the subject's identity. Francis Picabia's portrait of Alfred Stieglitz, C'est Ici Stieglitz/Here is Stieglitz (1915, Stieglitz Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art) depicts only a broken bellows camera. Stieglitz was a famous photographer, dealer and Georgia O'Keeffe's husband. The early twentieth-century Modernists loved machines and Picabia's affection for the machine and Stieglitz is expressed here.
As you can see, contemporary portraits can vary widely. The media used differs considerably. Ms. Gilje used the traditional portrait materials, oil on canvas; Picabia used more graphic materials and collage in his portrait representing Stieglitz. Both subjects were alive when these portraits were created, saw them, and approved. BBL
