Colored artworks

The work of color is central in any artistic work. It is even one of the first tools of the artist. It is difficult to imagine a work that would exist without the working of color - even if it is the absence of color that the artist chooses to present.

Through the ages and artistic movements, the use and meaning attributed to color evolves, but the essence of color remains the same. Every artist must master the properties of color in order to control his composition. In the restoration of paintings, color even becomes a science, because it is necessary to know the different molecules to find the colors and mixtures originally used by the artist.

In the history of art, the importance of color fluctuates according to periods and geographical areas. During the Italian Renaissance, for example, there was a debate (called Paragone) between the authority of color versus drawing: according to the schools, it is the color, and not the line, that creates the emotion and visual power of a work of art. The colors thus take on an immense importance, and assume certain meanings: white symbolizes purity for example, and blue (systematically used to clothe the Virgin Mary) is associated with divinity. These symbols are not thought of randomly: the purple for example, is used since the Byzantine era to signify the highest rank of royalty. Unlike ochre, the purple pigment came from a specific shell, and was extremely difficult - and therefore rare, and expensive - to obtain.

More generally, colors can be divided into three categories: warm, cool, and neutral. As their name implies, these classes of colors give off an atmosphere that the painter can use to influence the emotion of his work. Baroque art, for example, manipulates the contrasts between warm and cold colors to capture the power of bodies. The play of light is exalted by the effects of color. For a long time, the traditional Western school of painting required painters to reproduce the colors of the environment around them. It was the Impressionists, in the 19th century, who explored other ways of seeing - and therefore of transcribing on canvas - their chromatic environment. By avoiding complex mixtures and painting spontaneously, in the open air, the Impressionists reinvented the use of color to reproduce reality.

It was not until abstract and subjective painting that art devoted itself to color as a subject. Mark Rothko, precursor of the Colorfield Painting movement and of abstract expressionism, sees in his paintings a living organism whose color is human and whose format is transcendent. Piet Mondrian, on the other hand, sought in his paintings to approach the very essence of nature through the purity of primary colors, to achieve abstraction. The founder of the Russian avant-garde movement of Suprematism, Kasimir Malevich, will disturb the senses of everyone with his work "White square on white background", in which the color is painted only for itself. Contemporary art, photography, collage, or pop art also use in their respective ways the resources of color, exploring indefinitely all its pluralities. As Picasso said, "When I have no blue, I use red."

Artsper writes art in color: discover below a great selection of works that honor color and its properties. What better way to brighten up an interior?

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Colored artworks

Orange Flower lV

Orange Flower lll

Orange Flower l

Jessica rabbit

Field of Color IX

McSwyne's gun,

Nature 167

Nature 180

Northern Weather

The Flow of Blue (diptych)

Moments of Transparency

Lucid Essences

Floating Allegories

Entering the hardcore

New lands I

New lands II

Turn your light on I

Turn your light on II

Natural essences

Musical inspiration

Return to Ithaca

Night in Paris

Impact on pink

Autumn lake surface

Summer colors in 1969

Deep inside #29

A mountain keeps an echo deep inside.

Natural Elegance

Dreams and memories

Night fragrance XVII

Leaves

Diagonal Composition 4

Abstraction

Lush III

Elemental IV

Elemental V

Lush VII

Early Autumn

Early October

Bluebell Fields

Life-Force

Trees, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas

A Walk Documented, Painting, Acrylic on Canvas

Blue Trees Orange Fields

Nature Never Sleeps

Tree Life

Warming Up

Cobalt Abstract 1

Combinations

Chaos and harmony

Naxi III

Wild Bouquet,

Dreamscape 1

Breathing Room

Untitled

Cabin Fever

Versions, Painting, Oil on Canvas

CP-001

Toxic Positivity

Antoine Dupont pochoir

Le petit chaperon rouge

Arthure Rimbaud Pochoir

Jean Michel Basquiat pochoir

Petits d'herissons

Night Flowers

Sailing