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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Subcategories

Colored artworks

Courage

Loyalty's Foundation

One heart, Many Languages

Victorious Dreams

Imperfect Perfection

Our Collective Beauty

Portrait 60

Portrait 58

Self-portrait

Your absence is too much company

Because of your love my heart keeps young

Hurting my happiness

Hiphop the Funk !!!

Camo 50

Portrait 37

Albert Einstein

Etreinte

Camo 34

Camo 43

Camo 41

Protection

L'oiseau

Hope & Love

Trop de sport à Hossegor

Oh…un flamant rose à Hossegor

J’ai des perles, moi j’ai l’huître

Guy in Hat - 21st Century, Contemporary, Figurative Portrait, Acrylic Drip, Men

Attendre

Synergie

Mme La Fleur

Forms l

Reasonable

Heart Face

Golden Glow

Waterfall

Summer Rain

Ember

Pure soul

La dernière colonne

Titanomachie

Le souper d'Hécate

Hécate et le triple retour

Delaney Chrome

Just Coke

El rei de los mares

Maïtena

Angel

Power lady

Fille à l'écharpe rose

Sunday Mood

Fille à la veste bleue

Mandarin Duck Profile (S)

Orange Flower ll

Orange Flower lV

Orange Flower lll

Défilé high level

Happy Moments

Whispers of Butterfly

Fenêtres d'utopie N°86

Fenêtres d'utopie N°80

Fenêtres d'utopie N°64

Fenêtres d'utopie N°48

KADJ - Le réverbère - Nantes - île de Nantes - série photo couleur danse et architecture

Mirror's Secret

The Shape Shifter

Ancestry