For me, art is not just an interest, but a passion. When I like something I really like it, I love it! I can be pretty black or white on various issues and I am exactly this way when it comes to color. We all have a "favorite" color. Mine is blue. I love all the amazing shades of blue from light sky blue to deep, dark navy. It is cool, calming, infinite and happy. I also like greens and purples. They, too, bear a calm serenity and the similar elements of truth and regal stature that are conveyed by the blues.
And in true zen fashion, I also have not-so-favorite colors. You'll never see me wearing yellow, red or orange. One of my favorite sayings is "orange doesn't look good on an orange!" I find orange as well as reds and yellows to be too garish for my personal taste in what I wear and what I surround myself with where I live. Growing up in a hot, humid, southern climate I've always been what I call "heat-phobic" and have retreated from the heat and everything that conveys it, i.e. orange, red, yellow and seek psychological solace in the cooling, calming colors of water, leaves, and safe shade.
Yet I cannot deny my heart and my greatest passion when it tells me something that defies my personal sense of taste and logic. But that is exactly what has happened as I've spent hours oohing and aah-hing while looking at the pages of images in my treasured new book. And it is particularly the images of the paintings by Max Ernst that have led me to a surprising conclusion that I have managed to previously suppress.
I was introduced to Ernst back in the 1980s when the Menil Collection opened its doors to the public in Houston and began sharing its incredible private collection of modern art amassed by John and Dominique de Menil. The de Menils were personal friends of Ernst and supported him in his early career, Ernst later married Peggy Guggenheim, who also did wonders for his career. But Ernst's talent warrants the support of these wealthy patrons who also happened to be talented in their own right for their ability to recognize true artistic genius. The Menil collection includes many masterpieces by Ernst that when viewed make my heart flutter. Ernst was able to conjure imagery on par with that of the pre-Renaissance master Hieronymus Bosch. Ernst's bizarre quotient in the fantastical figures he created and his detailed execution of drafting skills convey imagery more likely found in the Bosch masterpieces.
But it is use of color that has so moved me to write this essay and express a notion I’ve so vehemently protested in the past. It is specifically the extensive use by Ernst of the color orange. As much as I proclaim this to be a hideous hue, I cannot deny the beauty I now see in the color orange when viewed in the paintings of Max Ernst. He had an amazing way of using many colors in his paintings that compliment, contrast, and define his surreal imagery to a higher level than the works by other artists of this movement. His blues are magnificent but his oranges emanate with a rich, elegant, and intense beauty that give his paintings, and by effect, surrealism a level of reverence that I normally feel toward early Renaissance paintings.
So to sum it up: I must confess I am a bit of a mess when it comes to my now gone feelings of disdain and distress over the color orange. Thanks to the mighty Max, I have to say in earnest that I am learning to love the color orange.
