An Interesting Observation About Color

After I published my Gustav Klimt’s Tree Paintings post yesterday, I had an interesting observation about one of his paintings, Blühender Mohn Mohnwiese.

Gustav Klimt, Blühender Mohn Mohnwiese, 1907

It depicts blooming red poppies in a green landscape, conveyed with thousands of distinct dots and dabs of color. I wanted to check something about the colors last night, so I had a look at the painting in grayscale and was surprised by what I saw.

I’ll let you see for yourself. Below is a close-up of the painting. Take a moment to ponder the values (how light or dark each color is). Can you rank the colors in terms of value, from lightest to darkest? How spread out are they on the value scale? Just do this in your head; no need to write anything down.

Gustav Klimt, Blühender Mohn Mohnwiese, 1907, Detail

Once you have done that, continue reading below.

Here’s a grayscale of the painting:

Gustav Klimt, Blühender Mohn Mohnwiese, 1907, Grayscale

And here’s the close-up again, followed by a grayscale version:

Gustav Klimt, Blühender Mohn Mohnwiese, 1907, Detail, Grayscale

It turns out that the colors are fairly similar in terms of value, apart from the “white” flowers. What surprised me were the reds, which are lighter in value than I expected, and the yellows, which are darker than I expected. The purple flowers are also a touch darker than I expected.

I’m usually pretty good at judging value, but I was a bit off here. What’s happening?

It might have something to do with our perception of color saturation. Highly saturated colors, like the cadmium red and yellow, can be difficult to judge in terms of value.

There’s also a lot of contrast going on. With the red flowers, there’s temperature contrast (warm against cool), saturation contrast (saturated against restrained), and some value contrast (dark against light). With so many points of contrast, it can be difficult to analyze what’s truly going on.

The key takeaway here? Color isn’t always as it seems, especially when dealing with vivid colors and high-contrast subjects.

Thought you may find this interesting. Also, just a few more days to join our new Tree Workshop. If you join during the opening launch period, I’ll provide a brief critique of your tree painting.

Regards