Colours of Art

Contents: Introduction



1. First impressions

Stone Age, Egypt, Ancient Greece and Rome

Feature: The nature of colour – how artists created natural colours.

Horses, from the Chauvet cave near the Pont d’Arc

Bison, from Altamira

Nebamun Hunting Birds, from the tomb of Nebamun

Tomb of the Diver



2. Ordering the world

The Renaissance

Feature: A roaring trade – on the colour trade and the cost/availability of colours

Lamentation, Giotto

Saint Ansanus Altarpiece, Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi

The Wilton Diptych

Saints Jerome and John the Baptist, Masaccio

Portrait of a Man with a Turban, Jan van Eyck

The Magdalen Reading, Rogier Van der Weyden

The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli

The Rape of Europa, Titian

Philip II, Sofonisba Anguissola

Portrait of Bianca Degli Utili Maselli surrounded by six of her children, Lavinia Fontana



3. Cutting loose

Baroque to Rococo

Feature: The colour wheel – on Isaac Newton’s discovery of the colour spectrum, and his error – trusting maths over the sensations of the eye

Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Caravaggio

Judith and her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes, Artemisia Gentileschi

The Toilet of Venus (The Rokeby Venus), Diego Velázquez

Rising and Setting of the Sun, François Boucher

Colour, Angelica Kauffman

Self-Portrait with Straw Hat, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun



4. Keeping it real

Realism

Feature: Risky business – on poisonous colours and artists risking their lives for their work.

Still Life with Cheeses, Artichoke and Cherries, Clara Peeters

A Woman Bathing in a Stream, Rembrandt van Rijn

The Goldfinch, Carel Fabritius

The Milkmaid, Johannes Vermeer

Flowers in a Vase, Rachel Ruysch



5. Two sides of a coin

Neoclassicism to Romanticism

Feature: How we see colour – on Goethe’s new symmetrical colour wheel and physiological theories.

Albion Rose, William Blake

Portrait of a Negress, Marie-Guillemine Benoist

Orphan Girl at the Cemetery, Eugène Delacroix

The Burning of the Houses of Parliament , Joseph Mallord William Turner

Comtesse d’Haussonville, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres



6. Let there be light

The Impressionist Revolution

Feature: Colour chemistry – on the industrialisation of colour and the making of synthetic pigments.

Two Women Chatting by the Sea, Camille Pissarro

Young Woman with Peonies, Frédéric Bazille

Symphony in Flesh Color and Pink: Portrait of Mrs Frances Leyland, by James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, Édouard Manet

In the Country (After Lunch), Berthe Morisot

Combing the Hair, Edgar Degas

The Child’s Bath, Mary Cassatt

Waterloo Bridge, Blurred Sun, Claude Monet



7. On the edge of the spectrum

Post-Impressionists, Pre-Raphaelites, Les Nabis, Surrealists

Feature: Colour decorum – on the relativity of colour and its use and reception in different cultural contexts. (An opportunity to touch on non-Western art.)

Night and Sleep, Evelyn de Morgan

The Suitor, Édouard Vuillard

The Visit, Félix Vallotton

Interior. Strandgade 30, Vilhelm Hammershoi

Barbarian Tales, Paul Gauguin

The Life, Pablo Picasso

The Green Blouse, Pierre Bonnard

The Two Fridas, Frida Kahlo

The Old Maids, Leonora Carrington



8. Express yourself

Expressionism and Fauvism

Feature: The psychology of colour – on colour communicating and sparking emotion.

Two Crabs, Vincent van Gogh

The Scream, Edvard Munch

Self-portrait on Sixth Wedding Anniversary, Paula Modersohn-Becker

Group X, No.1, Altarpiece, Hilma af Klint

The Yellow Scale, František Kupka

The Dessert: Harmony in Red, Henri Matisse

Seated Woman with Legs Drawn Up (Adele Herms), Egon Schiele

Still Life with Blackening Apples, by Helene Schjerfbeck



9. Seeing it feelingly

Abstract Expressionism and Colour Field Painting

Feature: Properties of colour – on hue, intensity and tone, and the changing precedence of each throughout art history

Electric Prisms, Sonia Delaunay

Mountains and Sea, Helen Frankenthaler

Bird Talk, Lee Krasner

No. 11 (Untitled), Mark Rothko

Ocean Park #79, Richard Diebenkorn



10. Show some restraint

Monochrome and Minimalism

Feature: The Pantone palette – on attempts to create a universal colour language. Plus Pantone’s predecessors, eg Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours (1814).

Homage to the Square: Apparition, Joseph Albers

The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, II, Frank Stella

IKB 79, Yves Klein

White Stone, Agnes Martin



11. By popular demand

Pop Art to The Pictures Generation

Feature: Anything is possible – on new materials and colour experimentation outside of the medium of painting.

Colour Her Gone, Pauline Boty

Ice Cream, Evelyne Axell

Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground), Barbara Kruger

A Bigger Splash, David Hockney

Ladies and Gentlemen (Iris), Andy Warhol



12. Here and Now

Contemporary art from the 1970s

Feature: The colour of art history – on artists painting black figures into the mostly white canon.

Self-Portrait, Alice Neel

Self-Portrait, Basquiat

Untitled, Etel Adnan

To Tell Them There It’s Got To, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

Spinners (Moths and Spiders Webs), Kiki Smith

Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something), Kara Walker

Shantavia Beal II, Kehinde Wiley

Boucher’s Flesh, Flora Yukhnovich

The Ruling Class (Eshu), Toyin Ojih Odutola

Sabine, Alison Watt

Untitled, Lisa Brice



Index

Further reading

Picture credits

Acknowledgements