What is Color Relativity and how to use it in our own artworks
Creating relations between colors.
How color relativity can help your colors work out better in your artwork.
I came upon an article on Muddy Colors by Donato Giancola “Color Relativity” where he talked about how understanding color relativity and how colors interact with one another no matter if the color is cool or warm. They can find harmony and work together in an interesting way.
So I tested it out on the 2 paintings we’ll be looking at today to see how these two artists used color relativity in their own artwork so we can learn some knowledge from them.
The 2 paintings we’ll be looking at are:
"Drawing Room The Four Copper Prings" by Vilhelm Hammershøi
“Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window" by Johannes Vermeer
What is Color Relativity?
An easy way to explain this for example we have a painting with a whole bunch of different colors and all the colors would work together, harmoniously without fighting one another so that some parts or colors will not look out of place in this painting.
Color relativity will also help us understand how to arrange the colors, whether cold or warm so they work out together and let us express the emotion we want to share from this painting we’re creating.
How can we use color relativity?
We’re going to learn how you can practice and use color relativity by looking at these 2 paintings:
"Drawing Room The Four Copper Prings" by Vilhelm Hammershøi
"Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window" by Johannes Vermeer
"Drawing Room The Four Copper Prings" by Vilhelm Hammershøi
Let’s take a look at our first painting and see how color relativity is used.
Harmishoi did a really interesting thing with his painting and how he used color relativity.
The first thing is he used a very nice combination of complementary colors of cold and warm. The wall on the right side has a tint of blue and purple together with the warm yellow sunny glow through the window and curtain. Since purple and yellow are complementary colors, they worked together really nicely. Also making the color tones less intense and more muted and de-saturated, both of the colors worked in harmony.
The table at the bottom has a warm feeling to it.
Not only because it itself has a nice warm woody color and earth tones but the color that surrounded it was more on the cooler side. Where the bottom frame of the window and the wooden floor emit a bit of a blueish-cold grey. With a cold color surrounding a warm color, it made it warmer while it's being compared to the colder color.
The color balance is very well done. There are a lot of neutral colors in this painting so we have fewer “screaming colors” in this painting (as I would like to call it) lol. The warmer colors would be where the sunlight is shining through the window and drapes while the cooler and neutral tones of the wooden floor and the wall on the right side and also below the windows.
“Girl Reading a Letter by an Open Window" by Johannes Vermeer
The sunlight that comes in from the window into the room and
the green curtain both contain nice warm color tones. We can see how those two have a relationship with each other. The shadow areas balance it out with colder color tones and also make the warmer color warmer than it looks.
The warm sunlight that emitting on multiple elements in the painting. We have the figure, background, and the green curtain all relating to each other.
This really connects all of the elements together because they all have a similar color tone that matches one another. If we didn't add the warmer yellow glow on the brightest part of the curtain, the curtain would seem a bit out of place, because the color of the elements and objects relate depending on what's surrounding.
The coldest colors also relate to one another. You can see a tint of blue in the shadow area on the wall and also the frame of the window. They both have relatable colors and connect the objects in this painting together and not feel out of place.
Let’s check out the red colors and see if they also relate to all the other colors around. To make the painting more interesting, we see complimentary colors again! The green curtain and the red curtain balance out the areas where the color occupies. Red doesn't seem out of place because we do have some red tones that are a little bit more desaturated where the table is and have lots of dark shadows.
Have fun trying to find relative colors in some of your favorite paintings or pictures you like. Or even better, in your own painting you’re currently creating. See if we have some kind of connection with the colors so they have a relationship with one another.
I hope you enjoyed this new way of practicing and studying color relativity in paintings and using a simplified way of looking at the artwork. I hope this helps improve your creative art by experimenting with different things.
What did you discover?
I’m curious to see what your thoughts are on how to use color relativity in a piece of artwork/painting. If you also discovered something new about it, I would love to know! (You can comment and share your thoughts below!)
Thank you for reading my fun little discovery and I hope you also get to learn and share your discoveries too!
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PS Feel free to watch my new YouTube video about this new post! Sharing thoughts and ideas!