Basic and natural colours in a Munker White illusion – an art installation

Abstract

Humans constantly apply a bilateral system of colour interpretation: that of light and pigment. The objective of these experiments/installations was to verify White’s illusion in a comparison between three basic colour food colouring in water contrasts and three natural tea colour contrasts. The illusion involves changes in the lightness of a colour test element that interrupts a dark or a light bar of a darklight square wave grating. In Experiment 1 we used three different basic colours of food colouring in water compared with Experiment 2, where we used natural teas. We proposed a three dimensional structure, composed of glass jars containing the coloured liquids. The transparency of the container allows for a complex pigment light interaction. Typically illusion experiments have been visualised with pigments on paper. The use of coloured liquids in a three dimensional structure created the same effect as the Munker White illusion; lightness or colour assimilation occurred in these multidimensional versions.