Hi Michael - good piece that I enjoyed reading but re van Gogh's 'blue' Irises. You are correct in that the painting was mainly a study in colour but the irises were originally purple. As the red pigment has faded, they have turned blue. In this painting he set out to achieve a powerful contrast placing the purple flowers against a yellow background and in another of the same bouquet he contrasted purple and pink with green. This fading of the red pigment also happened in his painting “The Bedroom” with time turning the purple walls blue and the pink floor brown.
That might be true, I was only going on what I could see today not hypothetically what it looked like then. Nonetheless the principle holds true for the vast majority of Van Gogh's works.
Indeed Michael, indeed. Many of his works - especially still lifes - were colour exercises. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam have recreated what they believe 'The Bedroom' looked like when first painted not sure if they've carried out a similar exercise with Irises.
Great artists paint what people feel. Emotions brushed with color on canvas. Thank you Michael, I learned much here about the magic of color!
❤️💚💛💜💙🧡
Hi Michael - good piece that I enjoyed reading but re van Gogh's 'blue' Irises. You are correct in that the painting was mainly a study in colour but the irises were originally purple. As the red pigment has faded, they have turned blue. In this painting he set out to achieve a powerful contrast placing the purple flowers against a yellow background and in another of the same bouquet he contrasted purple and pink with green. This fading of the red pigment also happened in his painting “The Bedroom” with time turning the purple walls blue and the pink floor brown.
That might be true, I was only going on what I could see today not hypothetically what it looked like then. Nonetheless the principle holds true for the vast majority of Van Gogh's works.
Indeed Michael, indeed. Many of his works - especially still lifes - were colour exercises. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam have recreated what they believe 'The Bedroom' looked like when first painted not sure if they've carried out a similar exercise with Irises.