Colorist

[Sharon Knettell]

Originally Posted by Steve Craighead

I think of Henry Hensche as a colorist. In fact, he called himself a colorist as opposed to being a "value painter". He said every form change is a color change. In other words, form is created on the canvas not by lightening or darkening color by adding white or black, but instead by painting the distinct and unique color that describes the form.

This definition and artist nails it for me. Thank-you Steve for that wonderful post.

The brilliance of the Impressionist movement is that they released the pictorial from the grip of chiaroscuro and form. It was the influence of the beautiful art coming in from Asia that alerted artists to the beauty of color and pattern alone.

It is a rather unusual perhaps but exhilarating way to paint. I simply mix the color and bring up to my model to see if it matches. After a few matches, you can judge if it needs to be bluer or pink etc. It simplifies the palette for me, anyway, to only white, naples yellow genuine, yellow ochre, vermilion, pyrolo ruby, raw umber, ivory black, ultramarine and viridian. You keep working until the color vibrates.

It becomes like a play and removes the mechanical and intellectual aspects from the process. When I had my workshop in Scottsdale last summer, I has my students running back and forth to the model with bits of mixed color on their knives. The poor model. Mine is used to it.

I have actually moved my model to face the light directly, thus de-emphasizing the form and playing more with a flat background. Klimt did that with great success, elegance and originality.

Julie-Thank-you for that lovely compliment.

[Sharon Knettell]

Here are some examples of colorists at -I think-their best and most inventive.

Manet "At the Bar at the Folies Bergere", Klimt's "Eugenia" a Frieseke's " The Birdcage" and a gorgeous Chinese painting.

Manet, dearest to my heart, was a seminal figure in this movement. Bored out of his gourd , he fled Couture's atelier and left classical realism in it's stale old dust. He started by placing his figures directly facing the light, thus emphasizing the design and placement and lessening the influence of form. "The Bar at the Folies Bergere" is an example of that.


The Klimt painting is a, masterpiece of color organization. I love the way he used the bright green to describe the form of the face. He made a gorgeous painting out of a rather uninteresting subject.

The Frieske painting "The Birdcage" is a masterful play of light and complementary color -yellow and purples.

The 17th Chinese painting is a total delight -an important and overlooked feature in contemporary art. The beautiful arabesque of the pink and red peonies is anchored by that startling teal flower.