Warm and cool defined

Marvin Mattelson · 12-09-2002, 11:40 AM

Yesterday I had the pleasure of leading a group of my students on my semiannual tour of the Met. I call it

Julianne Lowman · 12-09-2002, 12:10 PM

Marvin, would you kindly post photos of paintings which display the skin tones you reference. I am a very visual person and love to see pictures with explanations and am very interested in your topic.

Michael Fournier · 12-09-2002, 10:57 PM

I am not sure what you are trying to say here, Marvin. I wonder if this was a post to stir up the colorists among the Forum members. You also sound a bit like the Paris Critics referring to Manet's Olympia.

You wrote:[QUOTE] All cool effects that we evidenced in the skin tones were created optically by the juxtaposition of neutral tones with more chromatic ones. I think this is a salient point due to the numerous recommendations I

Marvin Mattelson · 12-10-2002, 10:47 AM

Julianne,

I have been searching for reproductions to illustrate my point but since I am talking about very subtle nuances I have been unable to find images that capture the colors faithfully enough to make the point, but I will keep looking. In the meantime here is a little chart I have cooked up. The small neutral (gray) squares are all identical in color and value. However they look different based on the surrounding field. The square against black looks lighter than the one against white. The square in the red field looks cooler than the one against the blue green field which appears warmer by comparison. Hope this helps.

Michael,

I didn

Michael Fournier · 12-10-2002, 05:54 PM

[QUOTE] You mention a number of well-known and very accomplished painters who use a myriad of colors on their palette (which I refer to as the Baskin Robbins Palette). I could counter with Rembrandt and Velasquez each of who used only four colors, with not too shabby results. So I would say the number of colors doesn

Michele Rushworth · 12-10-2002, 08:52 PM

Here are a couple of what I think are excellent reproductions from the Rijksmuseum website. Not having been there in person I can't say for sure, though.

Marvin, what do you think of these skintones?

Michele Rushworth · 12-10-2002, 08:53 PM

Here's the second one, of his wife Saskia:

Marvin Mattelson · 12-10-2002, 08:59 PM

Michele,

You go girl! Good examples of the use of neutrals to make recession. Many would call these cool tones.

Peggy Baumgaertner · 12-10-2002, 09:37 PM

Michele,

Just a clarification, I am not familiar with either work, but while the second painting is clearly a Rembrandt, the first looks more like a Hals, or even a Van Dyke. It makes no difference in the nature of the thread, I am just curious. Wonderful reproductions, I especially like the first painting. I could feast for a month on the first painting.

Peggy

Michele Rushworth · 12-10-2002, 10:14 PM

They're both listed as Rembrandts on the Rijksmuseum website.

Check out this link and go to portraits. It's what I feel is THE best art site on the web for high quality reproductions. Click on the zoom icon and you can scroll around to see every tiny brushstroke on many, many masterful paintings. Be prepared to spend hours in awe....

http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/asp/framuk...=bezoekersinfo

To find the portraits, click on Collection at the top of the page. Then click on: 1250 Major Exhibits, then Catalogue, then Paintings, then Portraits, then Female. Scroll to the right. It's part of the second grouping of paintings.

The second painting I showed above is listed as a Rembrandt portrait of a Haesje van Cleyburgh, painted in 1634, one year after the Saskia portrait. They do have a very different feel don't they? I'm guessing Rembrandt felt he needed to work the commissioned piece to a higher level of finish than the one of his wife, which he may have done to suit his own tastes.