색면(Color Field)을 사용한 작품에서의 숭고미

Abstract

Color is an element of incomparable importance in modern visualart. It is necessary for complete portrayal of an object, and the atmosphereof image is changed by the characteristics of colors. Theemergence of abstract art highlighted the color as an independent elementapart from a mere tool for realistic depiction. However, it wasstill used for aesthetic purposes or expressing emotion of painter. Newman’s and Rothko’s work focused on arousing sublimity in audience’smind rather than pursuing aesthetics in using color fields,while light artists such as Robert Erwin or James Turrell used thecolor of light to express sublimity. The concept of sublimity was first discussed in accordance withrhetoric or public oratory by Longinus. The precise meaning of sublimitywhich is separated from beauty was defined by Kant. “Thebeautiful and the sublime agree on the point of pleasing on their ownaccount.” However, “sublimity is to be found in an object even devoidof form, so far as it immediately involves, or else by its presenceprovokes a representation of limitlessness, yet with a superaddedthought of its totality” unlike beauty. The beautiful is directly attendedwith a feeling of the furtherance of life, while the feeling ofthe sublime is a pleasure that only arises indirectly related withself-preservation. Such a concept of the sublime was reconsideredwithin the frame of post-modernism by Lyotard. In modern artworks, color is limitlessly extended, unconfined by2-dimensional frame or space, to arouse sublime feelings. Advance oftechnology and invention of LEDs enabled light to have millions ofcolors and more vivid and formless expression compared to pigmentbecame possible, thus promoting development of artworks in various media. Color field artworks commonly arouse sublimity by filling giganteansize of canvas or space with light. Vague border or blurring causedby interference of light between color fields invigorates imaginationand feelings of infiniteness. Sublimity can be found in the canvas orspace devoid of forms and only in that case can the infiniteness beperceived. Color is only used as a tool that implies an existence ratherthan having a meaning itself. The canvas in color field worksfunctions as a reservoir for light, and the color of the light visualizesan empty space. Color field works which is related with the sublimelets audience focus on the chronological incident rather than the materialisticobject itself, and henceforth the role of audience becomesimportant.