After writing my blog on Monet’s Garden, I shared how I learned that the landscape architect reconstructed Monet’s garden based on his paintings and how Monet painted based on the color schemes of flowers in his garden. It makes a circle, does it not?
The intensity of paintings (or gardens) relies on how colors are placed near one another. For fun, I went out to my garden to see what might be left (this season) and surprisingly found enough samples to make a primary, secondary, and tertiary color wheel. (see photo)
One of my favorite things to teach was the color wheel. Students became so excited to mix two colors and make a new one! It was magic! Most children learn the colors of the rainbow in art (or science) ROYGBIV, the primary and secondary colors, except for Indigo. Did you know not everyone can see indigo in the rainbow?
The study of Color is ancient: Aristotle believed colors were sent from heaven on rays of light, Newton experimented with prisms and created rainbows, and Le Blon outlined three primary colors, red, yellow, and blue, which give us our secondary colors, orange, green, and violet. When primary and secondary are mixed, tertiary colors are created. They are infinite, including values and tones, adding white and black. Artists and scientists have studied The science of color, inspiring art movements and philosophies throughout Art History.
The Impressionists studied how light reflected off objects. Artists have always experimented with the emotions of colors; certain temperatures (when placed next to each other) significantly impact the viewer, mainly when used in advertisements.
To see artwork in person, there is an excitement or “gasp” to see how an artist used colors and textures together. I have experienced that myself with great joy.
Speaking of Monet’s Garden, if you look at his Waterlilies, you will view small strokes of red and purple shadows beneath pink lilies floating on top of blues and green. It is joyful. In Van Gogh’s The Drinkers, his palette is cool colors of energetic strokes, mixtures of blues and green. However, diagonally, the bright red hat and distant rooftops pull us in from right to left. In Mary Cassatt’s The Child’s Bath, the mother tenderly washes the child’s feet in water painted with cool blues; unexpectantly, she used a red outline stroked along the little girl’s foot. It’s brilliant! I never noticed it in reproductions, but seeing it in person was vivid.
The next time you visit a gallery or museum, please take a closer look at where the artist has placed their colors.
