Teach with Collections: Josef Albers, Folder 5, from Formulation: Articulation, Volume 1

Albers spoke of color as being relative and changing depending on its environment, stating, “In visual perception, a color is almost never seen as it really is — as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art.” Throughout his two volumes of prints, Formulation Articulation, Albers experimented with different compositions and color combinations, as in these two images of nested squares, to create varying illusions of depth and transparency. Conversation prompts: Albers’s theories about the relativity of color depended largely upon comparisons between different color combinations. What differences do you notice when shifting your gaze from the nested squares on the left to those on the right? What is the significance of repetition in Albers’s artistic process?