I spy with my eye something with RED!

Red is supposedly the first colour perceived by Man. No wonder, that it is such a powerful colour for us. It stands for both passionate love and hate, for seduction and violence. In other words: Red is a colour of extremes and of pure energy.

In art, Red was the earliest colour used by prehistoric ancestors -perhaps as long ago as 300,000 years. Take for example the realistic rendering of a bison from the Cave of Altamira of about 16,500 BC.

When the Spanish conquistadores descended on Mexico in the 1500s they were struck by the vibrant and intense red of the fabrics and face paintings of the Aztecs. It turned out that they used a dye that was made of dried and grated Cochineal insects that lived on cactuses. Soon, dried Cochineal red became an immensely important trade good which made Spain – beside the gold and silver – a rich country. It became the most expensive red as some 150,000 insects were needed for just 1 kg of dye. The Spanish were, of course, eager to keep the origins of the “Spanish Red” a secret in order to maintain their monopoly. As monopolists usually do, the Spaniards steadily drove up the price – so high that it even equalled the price of gold. Some of the greatest painters such as Rubens, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer or Tintoretto used it.

The material value of most red dyes made it a prestigious colour. Throughout the centuries it was the colour of the highest ranks of society. From the Roman Emperors to European princes such as Heinrich VIII’s son, Edward III, rulers and members of the aristocracy did wear red clothing as a sign of status and wealth. A very saucy example is the state portrait of Louis XIV by Hyacinthe Rigaud, done in 1701.  The ‘King of Sun’ – poses in a most elegant, dance-like pose. Most important, you can see both his red heels – an unmistakable sign of his royal distinction. In the early 1670s, he proclaimed that only a privileged group of noblemen were allowed to wear them at court which made the red heels an ultimate badge of honour.

When we travel through time we will find that red has always had its place in art. Picasso once said “if I don’t have red I use blue”. Both colours were important to him, but red – the colour of energy and instinct – was his preferred one. And indeed, at the turn of the century red was used a colour of a new spirit: strength, exaltation and bold expressiveness.

The Russian Alexei Jawlensky used it excessively, especially in his portrait “Schokko with wide-brimmed hat” of 1910. When he moved to Munich in 1896 he became a friend of Wassily Kandinsky and one of the main driving force behind German Expressionism. Characteristic for him are the rendering of faces in a manner influenced by the Russian icons, the simplified forms the intensity of colour.

Schokko was young model who sat for the artist for a number of costumed portraits. The nickname derived from her favour for drinking chocolate. In his portrait of her, he is not very much concerned with her physical features; instead he tried to render her personal manner. And we Schokko he met with an immensely attractive woman though very withdrawn and unapproachable. Look at the colour scheme, it tells you exactly that: a cold, greenish hue for the face and sumptuous, warm red dyes for her lips, hat and surrounding.

Red as a warm, attractive and fascinating colour was also used by the contemporary artist Anish Kapoor for his breathtaking installation called “Leviathan” at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2011. The work was especially created for the nave of the Grand Palais’ enormous space. Anish Kapoor conceived three 35 metre-high interconnected balloons with a dark purple skin and a translucent red interior. From inside, the silhouette of the Grand Palais’ iron ceiling-construction is visible through the bulbous red rubber. The artist, who is famous for addressing all the senses of the audience said about his work.  “A single object, a single form, a single colour…My ambition is to create a space within a space that responds to the height and luminosity of the Nave at the Grand Palais. Visitors will be invited to walk inside the work, to immerse themselves in colour, and it will, I hope, be a contemplative and poetic experience.”

From the poetic realm we move back into the real world – and we know that the saying “Money makes the world go round” is all too true. So, it might be interesting to know that the colour red is a real art market pusher. An expert at Sotheby’s explains: “Paintings which feature the colour red prominently are likely to rise in value thanks to the booming Chinese market”. Red symbolizes luck and good fortune in Asia. So red has become known by the auction houses as a driving force for raising the value of paintings.

So red is the first and last colour!