ABSTRACT
Amedee Ozenfant understood color initially and primarily as a painter - in control of its visual mixtures, alert to its material combinations, attentive to the history of color palettes and to the revolutionary tradition that extended from J. M, W. Turner to 'contemporary art'. Visual perception, material change and historical chance are the forces that oppose the constants and invariants sought by Ozenfant. In 1914, at the age of 28, Ozenfant was returning from a painting trip through the French Alps, driving to Marseille to catch a boat so he could join his wife on the Black Sea. Paul Signac was Ozenfant's most visible link with the tradition and practices of nineteenth-century painting. The use of techniques such as purple shadows in painting not only records the visual 'reactions' of color contrasts, but enhances them to heighten the effect in the painting, directing viewers' attention to the relativity of their own perceptions.
