Artist Papers

Lazure : A New Breath of Color
by Robert Logsdon

The lazure painting method allows color to fill a space. The white surface behind the layers of transparent or translucent color reflects the light back through the color. Due to this reflective quality, color is experienced in the space and not just on the wall. Some applications are bold and stimulating, others more gentle and relaxing. A soft gradation of colors, transitioning one into another, provides an interesting alternative to a continuous single hue. Through the layering of different colors a relation to nature's hues is achieved. It is nature’s habit to mix an array of colors with one another, so that each is distinct and yet harmonious. These colors invite, integrate and harmonize.

Colors in nature are never monotone. Instead, many nuances interplay to provide an enlivening variety for the eye, the soul, and the human spirit. Nature provides a continuously changing atmosphere of light and darkness. This interplay of light and dark creates the dramatic color experiences of sunset and blue sky. Pervading all of nature, light and dark are revealed as the parents of color. Both are needed to perceive color. An illuminated atmosphere with darkness of space behind it reveals the "azure" blue and other colors of the cool spectrum. The warm colors are revealed in the sunrise and other conditions where darkness (substance) dims the light beaming towards us. The elements of fire, water, air and earth interact in the atmosphere to provide dramatic and subtle, ever changing color. The plant, animal, and mineral world are permeated with color. Yet, in none of these domains do we find flat, unchanging, monotonous color! Only human beings strive for monotone in making paint and other products!

Scientists, doctors, designers, and artists are giving ever more attention to the influence of color on peoples moods. Color is used to arouse appetite, to calm the overactive, to stimulate the passive, to support meditation, and to redirect focus. One indication of the expanding interest in color is seen in the recently founded National Symposium on Health Care Design. These annual symposia attract leading architects, designers, hospital administrators and healing practitioners from across the United States as well as other countries. Their focus is on improving health care by creating environments conducive to healing.

I attended one of these Symposia in 1993 and was subsequently invited the following year to make a presentation on the lazure paint work—that is to say a presentation on the use of transparent layers of color creating health-giving color environments. The presentation included basic principles of color and color therapy, lazure paint and an example of a medical facility where architecture, color, medicine and the arts have been harmoniously integrated to create a healing environment. I chose an outstanding example, the VidarKliniken of Jarna, Sweden, an anthroposophical hospital. I traveled to Jarna, and spent a week studying the hospital. The entire facility has been painted with beautiful harmonious layers of transparent color. The color scheme of the public areas was developed from the Norwegian marble on the floor: rose, golden ochre, and green. The facility has been receiving international attention, and is recommended by the National Symposium Health Care Design committee as the most comprehensive example of the ideals promoted at these symposia. This is a remarkable acknowledgment coming from professionals working in mainstream design, concerned with healing environments, and to a deeper understanding of the human being. Key note speakers emphasized the importance of healing the whole human being as body, soul, and spirit. These speakers included Bernie S. Siegle, MD, Leland R. Kaiser, Ph.D. and Patch Adams, MD. The founder of the Symposium, Wayne Ruga, is a practicing architect and interior designer. He subsequently founded The Center for Health Care Design which states as its mission "To be a facilitator, integrator, and accelerator promoting the widespread development of health enhancing environments, and the benefits that these bring to human well-being."

I draw your attention to this stated mission for, indeed, creating health enhancing environments should be the goal of each of us involved with architecture, interior design, and the use of color. I have often said that lazure paint is more than a decorative technique. Those who work with lazure paint express their intention as a striving to support the functions of a space and the people using the space. To quote Winston Churchill “We shape our buildings: thereafter, they shape us.” Rudolf Steiner founded the study of Anthroposophy and worked with sound, color, architecture, medicine and Eurythmy—an art of movement. Rudolf Steiner, the scientist, artist, and philosopher introduced “lasur” paint in central Europe around the turn of the century. He encouraged the use of transparent color and, indeed, in recent decades, it has been applied often in schools, hospitals, clinics, homes and even banks and offices. It is quite versatile, being used on wood, plaster, dry wall, and concrete. Mediums such as oil, acrylic, beeswax and casein are all used, meeting the needs of each situation and type of surface. A silicate based lazure is used on concrete interior or exterior, which completely unites with the surface providing stability estimated to last more than 80 years. Special lazure materials are now imported to the U. S. from Sweden by New Century Paints. Contact Terry Mullen, 413-528-4319, for information.

In lazure paint, pigment is dispersed in a transparent medium and painted over a white surface, or in the case of certain materials such as wood and concrete, the surface may be only partially lightened with white translucent paint, allowing the wood grain or concrete to show through. Lazure treatment allows the material to “speak”; that is to say “reveal itself”. As in nature, translucence allows the life quality of color to sing. Opaque color absorbs light or reflects light from the surface, not through color. Color is allowed to sing when freed from opacity. Transparency speaks of life. It is life promoting, or health giving. Wherever transparent color is used we experience an intimacy with the natural world, not the world as dead matter but the world as a living organism. In this way we transcend the physicality and bring a living element to an otherwise lifeless surface. Flat, monotone color promotes lifelessness. We are refreshed by the colors in nature glowing with light passing through ocean water, leaves, flower petals, bird feathers, butterfly wings, and even slices of fruit or stone. We are nourished in natures environment of color and we can learn from her revelations.

In my study and contemplation of color-phenomena in nature it becomes evident why Rudolf Steiner said that transparent layers of color on walls attracts the helpful elemental beings, whereas the opaque color attracts the non helpful ones. While this is not the place for an explanation of elemental beings and their various characteristics, it seems appropriate to point to the phenomenon of nature's processes. Here, where color is manifest in all degrees of transparency and translucency, we experience the enlivening nourishment of color. We should rejoice in natures breath of color, not to copy her, but to lift it into the soul / spiritual realm. A conscientious use of lazure paint requires a knowledge of color and its influence, an artistic/aesthetic feeling for color relations, and a practiced method of application.

In this article I have simply addressed the “life principle” attributed to transparency. In other words color is resurrected from the dead matter of pigment. Color, itself, is not matter. The reality of color belongs to the soul life. Just as quantitative science measures color frequency, a qualitative science measures color's inner motions. We enter the world of color when we awaken to the influence of color in our feeling life. Each color has its own qualities and invites particular moods. Some stimulate thinking, some relaxation, and others move us to action. The inner motion of a color reveals its true nature. While transparency gives a life quality to color, the specific hues, values, and saturation provide soul quality. When we surround ourselves with transparent color, we provide a greater opportunity for the color to breathe itself into our souls. When color is experienced in the space and not just on the wall it is as if we breathe it in with the very air that enters our lungs.