Color Strategy in Art

What is the impact of color on art? Well it's one of the most powerful communicators of emotion in the artist's tool chest. Imagine some of the world's masterpieces without color and pretty quickly you'll realize its importance and its skillful use. For this reason it's very important to study color strategies and it all begins with a study of light and its relationship to color. The study of light actually dates all the way back to the time of Aristotle who suggested that all color comes from black and white or darkness and lightness and that it was a gift from God in the form of rays of light. Scientific understanding slowly advanced over time taking a big leap forward in the mid 1600s during the time of Isaac Newton. When he was only 23 and in seclusion during a bubonic plague outbreak, Newton experimented with light and found that a ray of white light is actually made up of seven individual colors. How did he figure this out? Newton had isolated a single beam of sunlight by making a small hole in his window shutter. He then placed a prism in the path of the resulting ray of light and when the light came out of the opposite end of the prism it had bent and broken up into seven distinct colors. Newton called this range of colors the visible light spectrum and we often remember it with the fictitious name Roy G Biv. It refers to red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. After identifying and charting the dominant colors in the spectrum he noticed that the two extreme ends had related hues. This led him to connect those ends producing a circular model and what would later be called a color wheel. Newton's color wheel was based on colored light and only used those colors found on the visible light spectrum. But a few decades earlier a different color system was being established as well. This was the primary color system used by artists and it was based on pigments not light. At its core were the three artists' primaries red, yellow, and blue. The painter's color wheel begins by plotting these same three colors which are then mixed together in sets to create what are called secondary colors. Then one primary is mixed with one secondary to create what we call a tertiary color. These resulting colors are often hyphenated names such as yellow green. The completed color wheel can then be used to develop color strategies when painting and there are several common strategies that have been used by some of the masters throughout history. Let me show you. To begin with we need to learn how to examine a painting for color. When you look at a painting you try to step back and take an all-over view of the piece identifying the main colors or hues. Don't worry about subtle tones and values. Think general color. Identify those that jump out and then look at their placement on the color wheel. It's always interesting to see how those colors were used. Your colors may be shaded with black, tinted with white, or toned down by a hint of another color. Try to look beyond those factors and choose where on the color wheel they match up best. It doesn't have to be perfect, just get close. Here's another example. In this wonderful piece by McEwan you can see that the two main colors are red and green. Really almost all the colors in the piece other than grays and whites are variations on red and green. So if you take away the gray and white and then plot the red and green on the color wheel, even though they're very muted, you can see that they're complementary colors. This helps you see that there was thought behind the color planning. But it's also important to know that there are times when an artist doesn't strategize at all. They simply paint what they see in nature. And this often works out fine because the colors in nature are never off and they never conflict. It's one of the reasons artists throughout history have intensely studied nature. But there are plenty of times when you'll want to make adjustments, whether to achieve an effect or to communicate a feeling. And this is where knowledge of color strategies will be especially valuable. As we look through various master paintings, you'll notice that there are a lot of For the sake of simplicity, we're going to consider neutrals—grays, browns, white, and black—as supporting colors. Those colors used to build the painting, but not a direct part of the color strategy. Unless the chosen colors themselves are neutral, in which case they are the strategy, or at least a part of it. Grays and browns accentuate chromatic colors. So when they're included, it's a way to tone down the scene or to accentuate a chromatic color. Whites and blacks are used for value and to communicate feeling. They too help make chromatic colors pop, or they give viewers visual rest. So when we look at a master painting or plan our own pieces, our color strategies are based mostly on the chromatic colors—those from the color wheel or spectrum—with neutrals used to support. Now let's take a look at several of the main color strategies and some masterpieces from history that appear to use them. We'll begin with the simplest color scheme—a single color or a monochromatic painting. Compositions that use a monochromatic color scheme use variations on that color—tints and shades. You use variations in chroma and that. Although I don't usually count black, white, or neutral tones when evaluating color schemes, since they tend to act as support, as I said. Here's a case where white is the main color. This is a monochromatic piece by Klimt, featuring white tones and a touch of black to establish the focal point. And then you have the quintessential monochrome painting by Monet. Clearly this piece features mostly tones of blue for a very tranquil effect. Blue, remember, is a tranquil color itself, then used alone, almost, with a tranquil composition, and it brings home the feeling. Although a monochromatic painting could be in almost any color, the one that appears to be used most often is red, as you can see in these two paintings. There are also color schemes based on two colors—a dyadic color scheme. Dyad meaning two parts. The dominant colors are derived from two colors that sit exactly opposite on the color wheel, called complementary colors. This Renaissance-era painting initially looks like it's monochromatic, but the necklace is actually a complement. Together with the skin tone, it subtly balances the dominant green. Here's another very subtle use of complements—red and green, a gorgeous piece by Sargent. Notice all the tonal variations. Both colors are subdued and muted, giving it a very earthy feel that's pleasing to the eye. And here's another subtle complementary color scheme, this time in warm blue and a pale peach. Black helps establish the focal point, but the color scheme is a soft complement for visual interest without too much punch. But notice the feeling that warm blue, almost an aqua, gives the wintry scene. It's an interesting choice of color. Friedrich's painting of a girl staring out a window is another good dyad. I love this piece. And notice the wonderful balanced use of green and gold, although there's quite a bit of orange at the base. Still, I think we can place this one in the dyadic category. Colors can also be selected in groups of three. These are called triadic color schemes, tri meaning three. There are several ways to pick triads. First, the colors can be equidistant from each other, such as the use of three primaries. Or you can use a thinner triangle, referring to what we call a split complement. There's also something called a split analogous. This piece, created in the 1400s by Fra Angelico, is a great example of a triad, a split complement. Notice how he strategically places the boldest color, the orange, around the piece. It's very balanced, and the combination of the orange with gold and then well-placed blue complements makes the piece both pleasing and interesting to look at. This sweet little piece was painted by David in the 1500s. Here the artist uses a primary color triad. Blue is the dominant color, but David uses gold in the grasses and a touch of red to balance the color scheme. There is green in the trees, so it could qualify as a tetrad, but to me the main colors, the primary ones, are blue, gold, and red, a triad. This painting also features a primary triad, but in this case Van Dyck uses it in a much more subtle manner. First of all, the white was selected for the virgin, most likely to convey a sense of purity. The supporting colors make up a soft, gentle triad as well. Notice the toned down reds, blues, and yellows. It gives it a peaceful feeling. Another way to handle three colors is to create an analogous color scheme, where the three colors are adjacent. Analogous color schemes can involve three, four, or even five colors that are adjacent. They're all related in a sense, so they communicate a serenity and peacefulness. These are the calm and restful color schemes, such as the landscape we see here. I love this one. It's a beautifully rendered piece, and the three related colors that make up the bulk of the painting are really nice together. A gentle blue, a muted green, and a pale gold. Notice how they create a natural, tranquil feeling. And how about this piece, painted on the internals of a grand piano. This piano was in the White House during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900s. It was painted by Thomas Dewing, and features primarily muted but strong green, a very muted yellow, and a pale muted red. Subdued analogous colors that feel very harmonious together. And note their warmth. The colors sit towards the warm end of the spectrum, and together they feel warm. As opposed to this piece, another tranquil scene, but this time with a cool feeling. All of these analogous colors were selected from the cool side of the spectrum, giving the piece a harmonious but cool presentation. And finally, let's look at an analogous color scheme that features green as the dominant color, so you can see how that color impacts the viewer. Remember, green communicates a feeling of nature. Do you think the color scheme helps communicate that? The table appears to be a slightly cooler, much darker version of the orange in the fruit, but it works nicely. The dark value sets off the other colors. There are other color schemes that use four color groupings, and these are referred to as tetradic. There's a tetradic square, a tetradic rectangle, and a tetradic complement. Notice how each one is balanced, and we can see it pretty clearly in this painting by Caravaggio. Red dominates and is supported by muted smaller sections of gold, green, and blue. It's balanced and works well with the composition. A four-color design can also be a tetradic complement, and the example I have for you is what I think is an astonishing piece from the mid-1400s. In an era where almost all the paintings feature a similar look and a similar color scheme, this artist breaks the mold and gives us this warm blue and orange painting, really outside the box. And if you've taken my brushstrokes class, you'll appreciate the early, early use of impasto, as you can see in this image. A tetrad can also be very subtle, as in this piece by Turner. Turner was a student of color, so you know his choices and expression were intentional. Do you see the soft, muted blue, green, red, and yellow? Visually pleasing, but so soft that it keeps things subdued. And finally, this wonderful piece by Homer. At first glance, it appears to be monochromatic, but when you really examine it, you find red and orange and green and blue. The blue is very minimal, but it's in a significant position in her dress. So this, in my opinion, would be a rectangular tetrad. And take note of the color placement, the use of value contrast, and the use of chroma contrast. Bold, pure color surrounded by toned color. They're used to lead the eye. And as always, there are plenty of examples in art of masters who used color schemes that don't line up with what we've just studied. These are perfect examples to teach us that rules in art are guidelines. We can work with rules, but we can also think outside the box. Not every design has to fall into a neat heading. If a color scheme works in your eyes, go for it. The importance of this is seen in the work of El Greco, whose colors are really different from anybody in his time. It makes his work stand out. If you enjoyed this presentation, you may like my three-hour online class on understanding color, where we take an in-depth look at color theory and its application. See the video description for more information and links to the class.