Ars: časopis Ústavu Dejín Umenia Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (44.2011)

ism as represented bv thinkers like Newton, Leibnitz
and Bayle, the visible, painted already bv Rubens and
Rembrandt, became measurable. Inspired by New-
ton, artists like Tiepolo began using mixed toneš, to
convey the sensation of rehection. Colours became
part of the search for a transcendental technique.
Turner has to be seen and interpreted in this long
tradition of the expanding language of colour in the
context of the scientific research into the cosmos.
The growing knowledge of astronomy and the
geometry of the time revealed the insigniftcance
of the human being in the universe. But the artists
who tried to touch the transcendental needed a new
language, and nothing like the painting of immense
distances in the cosmic space could evoke super-
natural realities. The human being was no longer at
the centre of the universe, as in the Renaissance, but
ît was replaced by a vision of the cosmos in which

the independent role of colour of those times. Caravaggio,
for instance, was criticized for his idiosyncratic use of colour,
which did not follow the traditional iconographie meaning.
But while in Rome the role of colour was belittled, especially
for religious paintings, when not simply denied in its créative,
innovative dimension, in the rest of Europe artists developed
the language of colour also for religious thèmes, as we can
see in Rembrandt, Rubens and Vermeer. Their use of colour

the human being seemed to dim like a star in the
nebulous infinite space.
Humankind finally understood that the cosmos
was a boundless and at the same time pure unit, a
continuous and intertwined systém. On one side the
human being was only a little factor, insignifiant,
but on the other hand by understanding and reveal-
ing these complex truths he gained confidence in
himself. Becoming aware of this complexity and
capable of calculating it and revealing its rules gave
importance to the human being and so to the artist.
The fascinating unlimited breadth of the universe,
the infinite space and the intimate unity now dehned
the new work of art: the work of art itself in its
totality became a symbol of the universel Riegl
talked about an "impressionist" art, an optical art,
which did not make us perceive things, as much as
the air between thingsT Colour théories rehected
was accompanied by theoretical underpinnings, often written
and developed by the artists themselves.
^ HAUSER, A.: hoyM^vVdü.? ir Vol. 1.
München 1958.
^ RIEGL, A.: y# <?Ařf ir Or-
München 1985.

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