Dirty Light - Marko Ciciliani

Traditionally, the primary function of painting was based on illustration and representation. In
the 1820s photography was invented. The mechanical process of reproduction questioned the
very fundaments of painting and thereby encouraged the emancipation of the single elements
that are at play at the latter, most notably shape and colour. Gradually painting moved away
from the realistic representation of its motive. This development was also supported by the
advent of psychology in the 19 th century which encouraged painters to express subjective
emotional aspects through the use of colour. Hence, colour became an independent element
and freed itself from the function of merely representing light. 54
This development is especially evident in Impressionism, where texture and colour formed
the main objectives. The interest in moving away from a representation of light to real light
can also be seen in George-Pierre Seurat’s (1859-1891) development of Pointillism, which he
himself called Chromo-Luminarism.
The crucial justification of the Neo-Impressionist dot was the phenomenon of optical
mixture: the light reflected from contiguous patches of two or more colours will mix
in the retina to form a third colour, more luminous, it was claimed, than if it had been
mixed beforehand on the palette. 55
Seurat achieved colours by paining dense areas of dots of complementary or basic colours – a
technique reminiscent of mosaics, also anticipating the working method of television screens
that are likewise based on juxtapositions of tiny dots of red, green and blue. In the early 20 th
century the shift from Figuration to Abstraction was taken further by a change from
Representation to Reality. The representation of movement in painting for example led to the
reality of movement in Kinetic Art. Another culminating point of this development is Marcel
Duchamp’s (1887-1968) readymade, but also the inclusion of found materials like glass,
wood, newspapers and bus tickets in many collage artworks of Dada. The “real” original
object was thus incorporated in the work of art – as in the case of Dada – or became the object
itself – as in the case of the readymade. The primacy of colour and form was therefore
replaced by a primacy of material. Similarly, the representation of light led to the reality of
light and eventually to its emancipation as Light Art.
The concept of material was used to expand the concept of art, from product to
process, from object to performance. The expanded concept of material thus spawned
54 It should be mentioned, that the use of colour in the Middle-Ages was not strictly bound to representation as it
used to be since the Renaissance. See for more details see Gage, John: “Colour in History – Relative and
Absolute”, in: Colour and Meaning, London: Thames and Hudson (1999), 67-89.
55 Gage, John: Colour and Meaning, London: Thames and Hudson (1999), 78.
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