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

Concentric Squares

Mind Map 8

Tapis carrés magiques – Sonia Delaunay x Artcurial

Generaciones

Le Monde n°24097

Inclinadas

gravure originale Monotype N° 2

Dimidium | Etchings

Plateforme

All Directions point that Way

Migrant (Bordeaux-Green-Gold)

Coincer la bulle

Title n°344

Contours de l’abstraction, danse des caractères - série: Abstraction géométrique et danse des lettres arabes

NO. 1605

Luna

Jap's Eye 04

Série: photographie concrète numérique - IMG_1166 03.11.2013

Meditations on modernism -3

Grande Reset Rouge

Círculo

Untitled

L'entre & la roue

Awelye

Interstellar

Green Edition No.01m

2020 IV – 2

Quantum Study (Pink Entanglement)

Sans titre

Homage to Mirò

4 – Pi 55 concentrique vert herbe – Tirage photographique argentique

Escape zone

Mara et ses chats

Parasit

The Sun

Intitled

Être

Efflorescence

Traffic light

Danse avec les fleurs

Table Phoenix

Como una mariposa

Sphiral

Paysage Damier

Bo kaap

Blood diamond

Voiles (1)

Aggregate #20 (Large Abstract Contemporary Painting)

Tetracubes

Eclipse jaune

Surfin

Niza I

Les gardiens

21.09.21 Stars in the head

Fractal #008

November, 2021

Geometric abstraction

Face #3

Myriade-RGB_2024_0010

Last10

Composition

Pictografia

Passage introductif (Après le Disco)

On the surface

The Likes of Us

Trames