arms comparisons going from left to right
aqua chair on far left first... rate of change varies a bit, but is amazingly consistent from chair to chair. Where does sea foam end and olive begin? Or where does olive end and greige begin?
The names begin to seem like only rough generalizations.
Seems natural to me that any artist would want to play around with color batches this way. I sure would!
The difference between the three venice shells is quite dramatic.
... and the last two in the line
The last chair is also a venice chair. It seems the most likely to be a true "tweener" when viewed in person, but perhaps is simply greige.
Photos are not perfect, but at least you can get a feel for the differences.
I honestly believe that the "spectrum" continues on both ends of the line too. Just gotta find examples, thats all.
Well there goes half the day! In the future I will post photos relentlessly..
Thanks
Thank Solange...
He provided the photo tutorial, not me.
See, this is as confusing as anything really. I look at those photos and weathering is my first thought. Not that weathering is the only factor. But it just seems to cloud things to the point that it's impossible to judge the "why", you know? And that's especially true with the early chairs...
Did the dyes "mellow" over time such as but to a lesser degree than the red chairs or did the dyes remain consistent over the years?
We just don't know. All we know for certain is that they've faded.
Photos can never prove anything of course...
But first hand observation most certainly can.
Think of the photos as a rather rudimentary illustration of something that I have observed first hand. Because that is what they are.
Any "grey area" that remains on this issue will not be proven one way or the other by a photo, as I stated earlier.
But to try and explain away the "brown" chair on the right as a faded version of the "blue" chair on the left is simply laughable if you were standing here, I assure you. One can hide behind the photo dilemma if one so chooses, but that discounts all that I have carefully observed and explained above.
At least in real life, its blatantly obvious. One is a mint condition Aqua or "Seafoam Light" chair that still has its red Venice label, and is quite a pale "blue green"-- and the other one is almost Greige. Tan. Beige. They were never even CLOSE to the same hue in thier lives. Not in a million years of "fading". I think the slow gradations from one chair to the next actually buffers the vivid difference a bit.
The Zenith Rope edged chairs as a group may be somewhat more debatable. But its a LONG way from blue to brown. "Fading" doesnt get you there.
Again, the aqua chair on the left is in mint condition. Hardly used. No wear and very little, if any fading whatsoever. Looks like it was stored indoors its whole life.
In person, nobody in their right mind would ever say the chair on the right was bluish or "aqua" once.
Trust me if you don't trust the photos.
We can argue about the photo quality all day, but photos are photos. They do show the kind of range that I described though.
At some point, someone else will weigh in who has seen some of what I am talking about.
But I am fully convinced that there are lots of INTENTIONAL "tweener" colors.
I am sorry that you cant see them first hand Lunchbox and Solange.
EamesHead...
I've already stated that I've seen a few "tweeners" over the years. And I mostly agree with you really. But I just can't be sure. I actually have a theory on the Zenith chairs. But it's just a guess of course.
I think they were still experimenting somewhat or perhaps hadn't perfected the mixes when the earliest Zenith chairs went into production. This might explain the variations. Again, we can't be sure. The red chairs are evidence of that. But I've definitely seen "sea foam" Zenith chairs that looked like they were never close to what we know as sea foam. Parchment chairs have shown a range as well.
What? What's the fun in...
What?
What's the fun in agreeing? Damn, Lunchbox...
So now that we are at about 97.4% agreement on this color issue... we can now move on to "pure intention" -- which is absolutely impossible to agree on or ever know!
You said that they might have been playing around with color very early on with the Zeniths, because they had not perfected the color yet. (and yes we cant really know for sure)
Whereas I may be a bit more inclined to suggest that they were not ever interested in even finding a "perfect" Sea Foam. I might be inclined to suggest that they ENJOYED the many nuances found in a very quiet and modulated green, and EMBRACED those nuances and differences as a strength, rather than saw finding the perfect color as "problem" to be solved. Admittedly, just another impossible-to-prove guess.
AND NOW.... for my own "out on a limb" wild guess (just in case we can no longer argue about the above differences, we will have this...)
I that VENICE had something more to do with it, because Charles and Ray were there at the office. And I feel that the playing around with color went on well past the rope edged chairs. And that Ray might have been a big part of it.
(PBS American Masters Series was the interview I was recalling earlier, with the former Eames office employee talking about Ray's inclination with color)
For me, it seems easier to fine tune and modulate OPAQUE mixtures of color than it is with transparent ones.
The early Zeniths had lots of transparency, but the Seafoam chairs that came out of Venice were pretty damned opaque! So a less transparent chair would actually lend itself better to the subtle manipulation of more controllable opaque greys and greens, if desired.
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