Color Quotes Graphics: Van Gogh to Wilde
“Color in a picture is like enthusiasm in life.” -- Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853–1890
Image credit: Sensational Color
“I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day,” -- Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853–1890
Image credit: Sensational Color
“The Mediterranean has the color of mackerel, changeable I mean. You don’t always know if it is green or violet, you can’t even say it’s blue, because the next moment the changing reflection has taken on a tint of rose or gray.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853–1890
Image credit: Sensational Color
“I work in black and white, then go from there.” -- Deon Venter, South African-born Canadian Painter, b. 1953
Image credit: Adrien Converse
“Colours are the deeds of light, its deeds and sufferings.” -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German Poet, Novelist, Dramatist, Humanist, Scientist, Theorist and Painter, 1749-1832
Image credit: Sensational Color
"All my life I've pursued the perfect red. I can never get painters to mix it for me. It's exactly as if I'd said, "I want Rococo with a spot of Gothic in it and a bit of Buddhist temple" - they have no idea what I'm talking about." -- Diana Vreeland, Noted Fashion Columnist/Editor and special consultant at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1903-1989
Image credit: Ed Leszczynskl
“It’s strange, I’ve seen colours at times that when I’ve gone back to check on them, they’ve vanished…” ~William Percy Weston, Canadian Painter, b. 1879
Image credit: Ferdinand Stöhr
“Truly color is vice! Of course, it can be, and has the right to be one of the finest virtues. Controlled by the strong hand and careful guidance of her Master drawing, color is a splendid Mistress, with a mate worthy of herself, her lover, but her Master likewise, the most magnificent Mistress possible, and the result is evident in all the glorious things that spring from their union.” -- James Abbott McNeill Whistler, U.S.-born British painter and printmaker who is seen as highly influential in the late 19th century art movement, 1834-1903
Image credit: James Abbott McNeill Whistler Public Domain
“How lovely yellow is! It stands for the sun.” -- Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853-1890
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Suffice it to say that black and white are also colors… for their simultaneous contrast is as striking as that of green and red, for instance.” -- Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853-1890
Image credit: Sensational Color
“There is no blue without yellow and without orange.” -- Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch, Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853–1890
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Any color works if you push it to the extreme.” -- Massimo Vignelli Italian Designer, b. 1931
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Colours are light’s suffering and joy.” -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German Poet, Novelist, Dramatist, Humanist, Scientist, Theorist and Painter, 1749-1832
Image credit: Sensational Color
"Blue jeans are the most beautiful things since the gondola." - Diana Vreeland, Noted Fashion Columnist/Editor and special consultant at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1903-1989
Background image credit: Cedric Wilder
“I love color. A visit to the grocery store is a treat – all those beautiful fruits and vegetables!” -- Joyce Ward
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Mauve? Mauve is just pink trying to be purple.” -- James Abbott McNeill Whistler, U.S.-born British painter and printmaker who is seen as highly influential in the late 19th century art movement, 1834-1903
Image credit: James Abbott McNeil Whistler Public Domain
“The mind is excited by what painters refer to as ‘broken color’, the juxtaposition of two or more colors in a single passage.” -- Eric Wiegardt, American Painter
Image credit: Sensational Color
“He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxity, if not a decadence of morals.” -- Oscar Wilde, Irish Playwright, Novelist, Poet, Short Story Writer and Freemason, 1854-1900
Image credit: Sebastian Pichler
“I am crazy about two colors: carmine and cobalt. Cobalt is a divine color and there is nothing so beautiful for creating atmosphere. Carmine is as warm and lively as wine… the same with emerald green.” -- Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853–1890
Image credit: Sensational Color
“The painter of the future will be a colorist in a way no one has been before.” -- Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch Post-Impressionist Painter, 1853–1890
Image credit: Sensational Color
“We don’t paint the color of the subject; in reality we paint the colors that reflect onto the subject.” -- Andries Veerman, Conteporary Dutch Canadian Artist
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Renoir said once that nothing was so difficult, and at the same time so exciting, to paint, as white on white.” -- Ambroise Vollard, French art dealer who is regarded as one of the most important dealers in French contemporary art at the beginning of the twentieth century, 1866 – 1939
Image credit: Portrait of Ambroise Vollard
by Paul Cezanne Public Domain
“Black is real sensation, even if it is produced by entire absence of light. The sensation of black is distinctly different from the lack of all sensation.” -- Hermann von Helmhoz, German Physician and Physicist, 1821-1894
Image credit: Majid Rangraz
“The West is color. Its colors are animal rather than vegetable, the colors of earth and sunlight and ripeness.” -- Jessamyn West, American Author, 1902-1984
Image credit:: Vidar Nordli-Mathisen
“Someday we shall control the full orchestra.” (to his students on color) -- James Abbott McNeill Whistler, U.S.-born British painter and printmaker who is seen as highly influential in the late 19th century art movement, 1834-1903
Image credit: James Abbott McNeill Whistler Public Domain
