Van Gogh: The Opposite Effect
Van Gogh was influenced by the impressionists and their use of bright colors. He knew that a color would appear more intense if it’s opposite were placed adjacent to it. Primary colors on the standard color wheel are directly across from their opposites, which comprise the secondary colors of the wheel.
What’s interesting about Van Gogh’s use of opposites is that they’re closer to the Munsell Color System, which wasn’t developed until after his death. I like this system better than the standard color wheel I learned in elementary school, and if you’d like more information about Munsell and his color theory, you can read about it here.
After cleaning off the work table, I laid out some possible color schemes. The center colors will be used on the sunflowers. The surrounding groups are various shades of blues and purples I might use for the background. What I notice, is that any of these would work.
The effect of the grayed blues in the upper right would be toning down the piece overall, while the purply-blues in the lower right would create one that’s very intense. The purples in the lower left would make the yellows appear even more bright, but it’s the warm blues in the upper left that would bring more yellow into the piece as a whole, making the entire painting brighter.
So, there you have it. The yellows, and their four opposites. No wonder Vincent thought he was losing his mind.
I started the rough draft today, and I’ve made a major change from the original sketch. The horizontal format just wasn’t working for me, so I changed it. Vertical is much more Van Gogh-y.
The big fat pastels are made by Mount Vision, and the others are from Sennelier. Oh, I almost forgot. I stumbled on a fun little time-waster today. Have you ever wondered how Vincent pronounced his last name? The National Gallery has some nifty audio clips.
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