Mark Rothko’s #212
ComplementaryColors
Mark Rothko’s Untitled
What are Complementary Colors?Colors which lie directly across from each other on the color wheel.
Also called Color Dyads, since they’re in pairs.
(Primary) (Secondary)
Red Green
Yellow Violet
Blue Orange
Hindu Deities Krishna and Radha in a Grove, 1780. (gouache on paper)Persian Miniature Painting
Seated Womanoil and charcoal / board 54" x 36"1940
Willem de Kooning
Not only can complementary colors complement each other…
…they can also neutralize or cancel each other out.
When mixed together, their original INTENSITY is suppressed, leading us
to Chromatic / Neutral Grays…
Carianne Mackin the thick of it 32 x 40” 2008
La Fenetre Ouverte, 1921
Jean Baptiste-Simeon Chardin’s Lean Diet b.1699 – d.1779
Cool / Warm Portraits
Playing on complementary colors . . .
Portrait of Sebastia Juner VidalPicassoOil on canvas1903
Portrait of Angel Fernandez de SotoBy Pablo PicassoEst. 1904
HarlequinPicassoEst. 1906
Boy with a Pipe (garcon a la pipe)Picasso1905
untitledAlexej von Jawlensky (Russian Expressionist 1864 – 1941)
Alexej von Jawlensky Oil on board1909
Self-PortraitAlexej von Jawlensky
Death in the Sickroom (version 1)Edvard MunchOil on canvas1893
Death in the Sickroom (version 2)Edvard MunchOil on canvas59 x 66”1895
Portratt avhlge backstrom (self-portrait?)Edvard Munch
Bring next week:
• 16 x 20” Gessoed Surface . . .. . . and after gesso has dried (10hrs) Paint a WARM GROUND (must dry
24hrs) (ground color need not be fully opaque)
• 3 complementary scales (completed color grid)
• Cont’d work on self-portrait…
