Color Challenge: Vincent van Gogh, ‘Orchards in Blossom, View of Arles’
Glass is a seductive material and there is a tendency, especially among students new to working with glass, to use the brightest colors and to combine many colors in a single work. This is not always the most effective approach.
Consider this painting, Orchards in Blossom, View of Arles, by Vincent van Gogh. A nearly monochromatic swath of grass sets the stage for a surprising palette of bright and muted hues in the trees, sky, and rooftops. van Gogh uses a complementary pairing of blue and orange to outline the trees against the rooftops beyond. The blue, orange, and light plum color of the tree trunks have nearly the same tonal value. That is to say, they are similar on a scale of lightness/darkness. And, yet, the roofs pop through the branches. Because of this deft use of complements and tonal values, the white and yellow flowers on the tree branches are something of an afterthought, as the entire world seems to be in bloom.
Vincent van Gogh, ‘Orchards in Blossom, View of Arles’, 1889
In my own work, I use a lot of glass manufactured by Bullseye Glass in Portland, Oregon, and I thought it would be an interesting exercise to reproduce van Gogh’s palette with Bullseye colors. This is at best an approximation as we are several steps removed from the actual paint and glass, but the exercise is nevertheless revealing.
van Gogh, ‘Orchards in Blossom’, Bullseye palette
For the grass I chose Bullseye 1207 Fern Green overlaid with a layer of 1808 Aqua Blue Tint to darken it slightly and reduce the yellowish cast. The trees are 1405 Light Plum. The pale bluish tones in the road and sky correspond to 1408 Light Aquamarine Blue overlaid with 1829 Gray Tint to again darken and slightly mute the color.
Nothing in the Bullseye line quite corresponds to the rooftops that contain both orange and yellow hues. 1025 Light Orange is the closest choice but is too intense by itself. I overlaid it with 1808 Aqua Blue to reduce the saturation. The outlines of the trees are very close to 1464 True Blue. The single darker rooftop near the center of the painting again posed a challenge as reds, oranges, and yellows in glass often do. For this I chose 1305 Sunset Coral.
Obviously there are nuances achievable with paint that are difficult to capture in glass, yet this demonstrates that it is possible to produce a rich color composition with a very restrained and limited palette.
Please let me know how you think I did with this exercise and I welcome any color challenges you would like to submit!
Good job. I think you came pretty close. Interesting that you overlaid the orange with the 1808 aqua, though if they were fused would they react? And the green I think is close to the right hue but in the painting, it’s more of a shade. Hard to get shades in glass. I do a lot of color blending in my work.
Ellen – Thanks for your comment.
I actually deliberated between the 1207 overlaid with 1808 and two layers of 1207. The two layers of 1207 seemed a bit dark in relation to the other colors, but, I agree that the 1207 plus 1808 is too light. Matching the colors is half the problem. The other half is getting the relationships right. In fact, the colors of glass representing the trees and the road are also also a bit light (thus my choice to go with the lighter green).
I don’t know about any reactions between the 1025 and 1808. I haven’t paid much attention to the reactive properties of certain Bullseye colors. It hasn’t been something I’ve sought in my work and, so far, any unintended reactions have not been a problem.
Very nice–you can prevent the reaction by slipping a thin sheet of crystal clear between the orange and aqua. I have a student who did something similar with her favorite Monet water lily piece and it was interesting to watch which colors she chose to include and which–even though prominent in the painting–she wasn’t interested in.