Color in Painting
Paul Gauguin
Mahana no atua (Day of the God)
1894
Oil on linen canvas, 68 × 91 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago
The pool along the bottom is not water-colored at all: it breaks into flat shapes of yellow, orange, pink, blue and near-black. The bank above it is pink.
- He painted it from memory and fantasy rather than from a scene in front of him.
- The Art Institute ranks it among his most abstract works; the pool's interlocking color zones show why.
- The idol at the center is green and blue-black, unlike the warm browns of the people around it.
- Farther back, sea, hills and sky stay nearer to natural color, so the invented foreground stands out.
Concepts
Image: Art Institute of Chicago Open Access · CC0