Vincent Van Gogh's Yellow Journey: The History and Significance of a Vibrant Color
Vincent Van Gogh's Yellow Journey: The History and Significance of a Vibrant Color
Everyone knows that Vincent van Gogh's favorite color was yellow. And why is that? We have compiled for you both the thousands of years of history of the color yellow and the reason for Gogh's fondness for the color yellow
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Our story goes back 19,000 years. Yellow is one of the oldest colors in painting.
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In these cave drawings from Lascaux (17,000 BC) we see a yellow horse. 👇
Again, we see the yellow color in ancient artifacts around the world as it is obtained from the earth.
In the Middle Ages, the color yellow became associated with Judas. Although there is no information about this in the Bible, he was always depicted in yellow clothes.
It was not until the Renaissance in the 16th century that artists began to embrace true perspective and depth in art.
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However, during the Renaissance there was a tension between the artists of Florence and Rome, who emphasized form and composition, and the artists of Venice, who emphasized color.
As we move into the 17th and 18th centuries, color itself begins to take center stage. Nicolas Poussin, like Titian, whom he followed, depicted color in a striking way.
Caravaggio used the color yellow in an unprecedented way: To paint sunlight!
Another point you should pay attention to from the Renaissance to the 18th century is the increasing realism of the color yellow.
But things changed when Romantic artists realized that emotion was the main thing that fueled art.
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But it was the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris that dominated the art world in the 19th century.
Academy artists imitated everything they saw in the High Renaissance. including classical and biblical themes.
Artists like Edouard Manet and Claude Monet thought that the world did not look like an artist's studio.
And now we come to the 1880s: Vincent van Gogh, former theology student and preacher, began to paint.
Paul Gaugin (1848-1903) took a step forward and reacted against Impressionism. He adopted a more subjective style of realism.
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Gaugin adopted unnatural colors. He depicted semi-abstract images rather than depth in his paintings.
Vincent van Gogh met Gaugin in Paris. The two later lived together for a while.
Seeing both the Impressionists and the Post-Impressionists who reacted to them, what impressed Gogh was that he painted as he felt, forgetting the true color of the world.
This also explains why Gogh painted both in bright yellow and in an unrealistic way.
However, the real importance of yellow for Gogh, rather than its history, was stated in a letter he wrote to his sister in 1888:
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Yellow was a color that inspired him, bringing out his sometimes anxious, sometimes troubled genius.
The live night he drew was not as it is in the real world, but as he felt it. In this way, we can say that it was deeper and more emotional than most photographs.
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