The Representation of colour Prince of Naples Gallery, in Maurizio Rossi (edited by) Colour and Colorimetry Multidisciplinary Contributions

The color as structuring material Shapes are stable, whereas colours are elusive. It is well known that, particularly in architecture, the visual acquisition of the colour scales is directly influenced by both the conservation conditions of the elements, which are subjected to the continuous action of chemical and atmospheric aggressions, and the optical effects caused by the reciprocal influence between colour and colour, the famous "interaction of color" by Josef Albers: "no colour exists by itself and the nature of every hue changes in reaction to the adjacent colours". It would be necessary to add other considerations about the themes of the perception event, the transparency, the appearance, the expression, the simultaneous contrast of colours, their composition and the syntactic structure tied to the opposing duality between harmony and disharmony, in order to reveal the so-called visual cohesion forces. These forces are the true nature of the world and reality; it is not the nature of a fruitless sequence of objects which are placed side by side , but it is the nature of a continuous stratification of elements, because "every object pushes beyond the merely visible and ventures into the ampler kingdom of the really seeable, which is the face of reality that is oriented towards us".With regards to the questions that are more directly referable to the use of colour in architecture, the colour has to be certainly considered as an intrinsic element of the final expression and form, through the factual propriety that makes the spatial effect perceptible. "The building will gain its right meaning through its transformation in an out-and-out architecture, that is a monumental synthesis of space, shape and colour. Through the study of the structural relations expressed by the colour syntax, the colour score becomes the spatial device that produces the exaltation of the contrasts between the architectural components that are organised in the compositive system; moreover, it gives visibility to the plasticity of the space according to a combinatory sequence. Through intervals and contrasts, this sequence aims for an harmonic condition of balance, where every colour conserves its own energy force. In the space-time dimension of its plasticity, where the constructive and functional factor transforms itself in a multiple aesthetic factor, architecture acquires the colour in its significant role as expressive element and structuring material like other materials as iron, stone, glass. colour is not only useful for orienting but also, and even more, for satisfying the need to display the reciprocal spatial relationships in terms of proportions, relations, directions. The accord of these relationships is the aesthetic aim of architecture [...]"which" [...], finally dissatisfied to show its hidden structure, will develop as an indivisible, inspired totality". So, there is the densification of a concept: the concept that architecture without colour (that is, the architecture without the colour scale that goes from the neutral greys intervals, which are optically inarticulate, to the evident contrasts that give combinatory fullness) proves to be inexpressive and, in the sense of necessary complementarity between light and colour, it can only be considered a blind architecture. Another significant aspect is the aspect that excludes every difference between the colour application and the essence of colour in itself of the matter: just like all the materials, the colour scores dispense energy and, in the interference of their contrasts, produce a tensional regime which, in turn, determines the architectural and aesthetic function.Starting just from this last assumption, the contribution that we want to produce is tied to the possibility of determining an evaluation of the colour interactions afferent to the architectural characterisations of a monumental building, in relation to an experience conducted about the comparative readings of the original project drawings and the re-elaborations recently made through infographic processes, according to a system of data gained in situ.The proposed problem concerns the complexity of the process that is activated if we take a sample of colour measurements, according to different measurement systems (from Eugène Chevreul's operative systems, to Albert Munsell's systematic catalogues, until Harald Küppers's rhombohedron9), and if we establish actions of comparison and reproducibility through digital techniques. In our century the prevalent interest about the colour system has distinguished and applied itself around colorimetry or simultaneously to the experimentation of the colour visual perception [...] This is actually the summary of the colour modern history: applied colorimetric and psichological techniques (survey and production). The reference architecture is the Prince of Naples Gallery, a building strongly representative of a significant urban transformation of the so-called Fosse del Grano a Napoli area, from the National Museum to Dante square. This transformation, begun since the last decade of the Bourbon reign, materialized in the second half of the Eighteenth Century, starting from the Unity of Italy. Different hypotheses of intervention were formulated; among them, the hypothesis proposed by the architects Saponaro, Catalani, Capaldo and Alvino certainly deserves a mention, as well as the definitive solution which saw the engineer Giovanni de Novellis and the architect Nicola Breglia in action. These ones, following the demolition of the Monastery of S. Giovanniello, elaborated a parcelling plan that included the opening of Pessina street, in place of Fosse del Grano uphill street, of Bellini street, Broggia street and Conte di Ruvo street, the creation of the Academy of Fine Arts, the Bellini theatre and the new Prince of Naples Gallery, for which in 1868 they presented an hypothesis for the arrangement of the "Front opposite the Museum". This project was accompanied by other two solutions that led to the final version, which included an iron and glass roof, the first-ever created in Naples, for completing the final stretch of Bellini street in the direction of the Museum. The drawings that accompanied these different proposals, including the final one, are preserved in the historical municipal Archive of Naples. They are characterized by being made with precise chromatic scores both in the wider compositions and in those, numerous, close-up ones; so, they are a precious documentary equipment for developing the comparative study with the representation of the current situation, which derives from the last restoration work, concluded in 2007. (RF) Comparative interpretations and unifying textures. The digital and analog chromatic veilings The necessity to define an operative methodology in order to significantly represent Prince of Naples Gallery also from the chromatic point of view, questioning its reality, has considered to support the interpretative reading of the data that are perceptible in situ with the study of the original project drawings, which are conserved in the ASMuN. Throwing light on the problem about the originality of colour as an efficient support for the assignment of the tones to the computer modelled surfaces, the comparative analysis between the pigments taken as sample and the colour scores found in archive has indirectly reinforced questions and doubts about the representability of colour through digital models.Comparing the compact uniformity of the pixel uniform layers and what is perceptible in the chromatic gradients rendered by the refined graphic-pictorial techniques of the old drawings, the comparative study reveals the indubitable obviousness of the approximation that is inherent in the computer systems; but moreover, this comparative study identifies a concurrence between the digital approach and the approach of the traditional analog representation.According to the purposes of the present comparative investigation, a particular interest is attributed to Edwin Land’s studies about the chromatic perceptions, and to the more recent studies conducted by Semir Zeki. Zeki stated that this comparison “is a property of the brain, not a property of the external world”; so, as Land restated, “colour is always a consequence; it is never a cause”. In particular, in the perceptive evaluation that occurs between contiguous coloured surfaces, we can individuate the points of contact of the digital representation of colour with the analog one.Furthermore, this sort of thin and light unifying texture that is used in the digital representation, surprisingly assimilates itself to the fascination of the so-called veilings, which are typical of the traditional pictorial techniques, or to the same frequent halftone screenings manually realized on the architectural drawings. In the drawings of the original project of the Prince of Naples Gallery, in particular in the “internal longitudinal section”, in the “Detail of the interior of the Gallery”, in the façade of the “Facade opposite to the Museum”, we can individuate watercolour veilings and halftone screenings made of strokes; their layers are superimposed each other and cover the surfaces with colours that are more or less transparent. So, they reach a colouristic outcome that is impossible to obtain through the spreading on the paper of a ‘unique’ colour that gains the seductive ability of the natural graduated light. (TDC)