Color in painting is a very important and complex concept. This follows from the physical nature of light and from the structure of the human vision system, from the process of color perception. It has long been known that no two people see the same objects and landscapes in the same way, but with all the richness of colors, there are common principles in the color sensations of artists.
The division of the painting palette into warm colors and cool colors is one of these concepts.
Spectrum sharing
The great physicist Isaac Newton (1643-1727) was the first to discover the color composition of sunlight. The beam, passing through a glass prism, decomposed into seven main shades. Subsequent scientific developments led to the creation of a color wheel of twelve primary colors, from which, by mixing, one can obtain the variety of colors that surrounds us, the richness of shades that has long inspired painters. This color wheel is named after the Swiss artist and scientist Johannes Itten (1888-1967).
The color spectrum and color wheel are usually divided into two parts - warm colors and cool colors: warm colors range from green to red, cool colors range from blue to purple. Green is considered by some to be a cool color, while others give it a special concept – neutral.
This division is clear to everyone, everyone agrees with it, but they have been arguing about the objectivity of the reasons for this division for a long time, putting forward their own versions.
The main criterion is temperature associations
Of course, the first thing that can be accepted when discussing the origin of the division into warm colors and cool colors is natural associations. Yellow, red, orange are the colors of the sun, fire. It’s not for nothing that the Russian language has a phrase that explains the heating of metal: heat red hot. Such temperature changes in color can be seen in a fire or fireplace, although some gases during combustion can turn into seemingly cold colors: how can one not remember the bluish combustion of household gas fuel. And yet, bluish and bluish colors evoke logical feelings of coolness: this is the color of the sky, water, ice, snow.
Day-night, summer-winter
The “temperature” of color is clearly related to the time of day: the rising sun, warming the world, colors the sky in a blazing range: red, pink, orange shades, and the coolness of the night is more clearly felt in the bluish moonlight, which gives the natural environment a muted and dim color, although the evening dawn - sunset - can also flare up in a hot range.
It is interesting that before the onset of cold weather, in the pre-winter period, the warm colors of summer flash brightly in the fiery colors of autumn to be replaced by the bluish and bluish color of snow, ice and cold sky.
Bottom line: the defining meaning of the concept of color “temperature” has an emotional component, which gives it greater subjectivity, although agreement with the generally accepted division into warm colors and cold colors among all objects dealing with the color characteristics is global.
What to plant next to daylily
These “lilies for the lazy” are very easy to care for and look great in the garden both in solo plantings and with a variety of flowerbed neighbors. Since varieties of daylilies are very diverse in color and size, you can choose among them a suitable companion for almost any flower arrangement.
Neighbors of the daylily in such a multi-tiered composition may well be both decorative foliage and decorative flowering species: delphinium, heuchera, lupine, mantle, weigela, phlox, irises, aquilegia, spirea, hydrangea, hosta, barberry, ferns, buzulnik, astilbe, evening primrose, crocus , tulip, gravilat, monarda... Flower beds that combine daylilies of different patterns, but of the same tone, will also look very attractive.
Close - far
Since the Renaissance, a well-developed theory of aerial perspective has emerged, which is based on another emotional and psychological characteristic of warm and cool colors: an object painted in a cool color appears further away than yellow, red, orange, or their shades. Not even a landscape, but simply a table containing warm and cold colors can give an idea of this.
You can clearly see how one of the titans of the Renaissance, Titian Vecellio (1488-1576), uses this color property in the painting “Bacchus and Ariadne.”
The master clearly divides the color space diagonally into two parts in full accordance with Itten’s color wheel, which would appear four and a half centuries later. Cold and warm shades of colors are used to build the huge space of the painting. Warm colors dominate in the foreground, the background is the bluish whitened colors of the sky, the sea and the land receding into the distance, and on the border is the greenery of the trees, which according to all theories is considered neutral, and the cold-colored drapery of the main character and the warm color of the cloak of the central character make the color scheme is refined and harmonious.
Scenario I. Warm light - cold shadow
This light scenario is familiar to everyone: we see this pattern in nature, it is regularly depicted in painting, and is often emphasized in landscape photography. Let's look at the work of John Singer Sargent, where he used warm light and cool blue shadow. It is clearly visible in the folds of the dress.
This work by Joaquín Sorolla of a fisherman on the beach follows a similar lighting scenario. It also clearly shows the contrast of the cold shadow and the warm light of the sun.
Everything is relative
It is necessary to understand that the “warmth and coldness” of colors in painting is not an absolute concept, that is, it cannot be measured, and this property can only be correctly assessed in comparison with another color.
The use of spectral, definitely warm or definitely cold colors is an exotic thing in painting; paintings from large planes painted with one color are a rather conceptual thing, for example, the abstract painting of Mark Rothko.
In more traditional painting, the relationship between colors of different “temperatures” occurs at the level of a combination of small strokes, which, due to optical mixing, make neighboring colors warmer or cooler. It is impossible to understand which colors are warm and which are cold by examining the areas of the pictorial space containing them separately from the surroundings.
General rules for forming a flower garden or flower bed
In landscape design, there are a lot of rules and secrets for creating a harmonious flower garden.
Here the requirements of the plants themselves must be taken into account - you need to try to select flowers with the same requirements for lighting, soil composition and frequency of watering, so as not to cause them discomfort during the process of growth and development.
Here it is important to take into account the size and shape of both the flowers themselves and the plant as a whole - so that they do not interfere with each other, for example, strongly shading or interfering with the root system of the “neighbor”. Here it would be nice to know the timing of flowering - regardless of whether you are planning a flowerbed of continuous flowering, where some flowers would replace others, or an option with bright colors only during a certain period of time and lush greenery for the rest of the time period
Popular articles Magnolia sprig
Here it would be nice to know the timing of flowering - regardless of whether you are planning a flowerbed of continuous flowering, where some flowers would replace others, or an option with bright colors only for a certain period of time and lush greenery for the rest of the time period.
Here you need to remember that some plants can oppress others due to their size or active consumption of resources or, conversely, protect them from certain pests and help them actively develop.
This certainly touches on the issue of successful color combinations and avoiding both excessive, eye-straining variegation, and boring, boring options.
In addition to all this knowledge, it would be nice for a novice gardener to know that in landscape design there are entire schemes of the most successful plantings, each of which has its own rules of organization. For example, according to their location on the site, flower beds can be lateral, vertical or central; in shape – regular and raised; by color - monochrome, contrasting and tint, etc. The density of plantings, the height of plants, and the color of their leaves are also taken into account - just planting the first seeds and bulbs you come across nearby will not be the best idea, believe me.
Now let's talk in more detail about the most favorite garden flowers - what combines best with what?
Shade is more expensive than color
One of the most obvious qualities of high painting skill is the ability to see and apply on canvas those millions of shades that are contained in every element of the nature that surrounds us. The ability to distinguish warm notes in cold colors and vice versa gives special expressiveness to the image. Here it is important to mention the principle of color modeling of volume: if light colored in a warm color falls on an object, the shadow should be cold and vice versa. Not all painters agree with it, but this law is applied very widely.
Some researchers say that the expression “warm and cold colors” is incorrect. The table shows colors that are very rarely used without mixing with other shades, and for a more accurate definition of paints one should say “warmer” or “cooler”. For example, Prussian blue and ultramarine are shades of blue from the cool part of the color wheel, and each of these colors will be clearly cooler than any shade of red, but even a novice artist will say that blue is warmer than ultramarine.
The use of complex color combinations and shades obtained by mixing allows you to enrich the palette, even if it contains predominantly neutral colors. So, you can make green the desired “temperature” - warm or cold - by adding to it the desired paint from the blue or red range.
Richness and purity
In the process of creating paintings, artists take into account some other properties of the sensations of warmth or coolness in color. So, in order to “raise the temperature” in the desired area of the painting space, an experienced painter uses less pure and less saturated shades, which will approach achromatic white or gray. Accordingly, the purest and most saturated shades are colder.
This definition goes back to questions of psychology: we consider everything colder that looks stricter, more correct, more concise, more symmetrical, more logical, etc. Something more sincere and warm always contains some kind of irregularity, inconsistency, incompleteness. This can be used to characterize not only painting, but also architecture, design, printing and other similar branches of art.
When flyers are the ideal solution
- If you like to frequently change the design of flower beds or you want to add bright colors and rich aromas, plant heliotropes, mignonette, gillyflower, matthiola bicorne, and fragrant tobacco in the garden.
- If you need to quickly fill the void in flower beds with perennials, if the flower beds are empty after digging up bulbous plants, plant nasturtiums, marigolds, lobularia, and petunia.
- If you want to decorate your balcony or terrace with baskets or containers with long-flowering plants, use impatiens, begonias, sanvitalia, mimulus, and schizanthus.
- Annual dahlias, verbenas, lavateras, asters, rudbeckias, gatsanias will become bright accents in a young garden, where ornamental shrubs and perennial plants have not yet come into force.
- Sweet peas, morning glory, and decorative beans are unsurpassed decorators if you need to quickly disguise an unattractive building or fence.
