Red and Gold Volumes- Green Light
This oil painting represents the beginning and end of the color symbolism present in The Great Gatsby. While the book is relatively short, it makes extensive use of imagery and specifically uses colors as symbols throughout the entire novel. I began by making a list of all of the colors the book had ever mentioned and discovering what each one represented. I then pondered different ways I could create a painting using those colors along with what they were symbolically linked to. There was a copious amount to choose from, so I decided to simply look back on my list to see what the first and last color mentioned in the book were and what those colors were describing. This is what I found: “There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought dozens of volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood out on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan, and Mæcenas knew,” and, “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter– to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther….And one fine morning—–So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
The glowing red rectangles of color with touches of gold in the painting represent the beginning of the book; hopeful about the future and the wealth it may bring. The omnipresent green light glows across the space signaling the misplaced hope in wealth that ultimately leads to destruction. The original version of this painting featured realistic red books sitting on a table underneath a green light, but it didn’t convey the visual message I was aiming for.
The alteration of my idea was inspired by Mark Rothko’s work. He used color, and rectangles as the primary visual aspects of his well-known works. The rectangles I used are evenly spaced and just wide enough to suggest books, with areas of thicker, darker red paint and fake gold leaf suggesting the spines. The light and hazy green created by a layer of paint worked out to its thinnest possible point ultimately lets the white of the canvas reflect back through those areas, much like watercolor allows. The green is also mixed with some of the same red paint used for the rectangles to enrich the color and also for the conceptual connection of the false hope in wealth tainting the green light.