Color Quotes Graphics: Hoffman to Kandinsky
“Color is a plastic means of creating intervals… color harmonics produced by special relationships, or tensions. We differentiate now between formal tensions and color tensions, just as we differentiate in music between counterpoint and harmony.” -- Hans Hofmann, German-born American painter and influential 20th century art teacher whose work paved the way for abstract expressionism, 1880-1966
“Colour creates, enhances, changes, reveals and establishes the mood of the painting.” -- Kiff Holland, South African-born Canadian Painter
Image credit: Sensational Color
“A yellow room gives you perpetual sunshine.” ~Steve Hovland
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“He who wishes to become a master of color must see, feel, and experience each individual color in its endless combinations with all other colors.”-- Johannes Itten, Swiss Expressionist Painter, Designer, Teacher, Writer and Theorist associated with the Bauhaus school, 1888-1967
Image credit: Johannes Itten Public Domain
“Red protects itself. No colour is as territorial. It stakes a claim, is on the alert against the spectrum.” -- Michael Derek Elworthy, English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author, 1942–1994
Image credit: Joshua K. Jackson
"My favorite color to glaze with is yellow. It always glows just like stained glass lit up by the sun.” ~ Jane Jones, Contemporary Watercolorist
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“The artist’s alertness to the coloristic demands of each picture, the ability to respond to the picture’s needs, to feed the color until its appetite is satiated; these are the true measures of a colorist’s talent.” -- Wolf Kahn, German-born American Painter, b. 1927
Image credit: Wolf Kahn Fair Use
“As a picture painted in yellow always radiates spiritual warmth, or as one in blue has apparently a cooling effect, so green is only boring.” -- Wassily Kandinsky, Russian-born French Expressionist Painter, 1866-1944
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“Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul.” ~ Wassily Kandinsky Russian-born French Expressionist Painter, 1866-1944
Image credit: Sensational Color
“The sound of colors is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with bass notes or dark lake with treble…” -- Wassily Kandinsky, Russian-born French Expressionist Painter, 1866-1944
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Colors must fit together as pieces in a puzzle or cogs in a wheel.” -- Hans Hofmann, German-born American painter and influential 20th century art teacher whose work paved the way for abstract expressionism, 1880-1966
Image credit: Hans Hofmann Fair Use
“It is wonderful how much depends upon the relations of black and white… A black and white, if properly balanced, suggests colour.” ~Winslow Homer American Painter, 1836-1910
Image credit: Winslow Homer Public Domain
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“Better gray than garishness.” ~ Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, French Neoclassical Painter, 1780-1867
Image credit: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Public Domain
“Only those who love color are admitted to its beauty and immanent presence. It affords utility to all, but unveils its deeper mysteries only to its devotees.” -- Johannes Itten, Swiss Expressionist Painter, Designer, Teacher, Writer and Theorist associated with the Bauhaus school, 1888-1967
Image credit: Johannes Itten Public Domain
“Painters use red like spice.” -- Michael Derek Elworthy, English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author, 1942–1994
Image credit: Gustav Klimt Public Domain
“Trying to brighten a dull color is nearly impossible… I start with a color that is too intense so I can calm it as needed.” -- Jane Jones, Contemporary Watercolorist
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Absolute green is the most restful color, lacking any undertone of joy, grief, or passion. On exhausted men this restfulness has a beneficial effect, but after a time it becomes tedious.” -- Wassily Kandinsky, Russian-born French Expressionist Painter, 1866-1944
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Color provokes a psychic vibration. Color hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.” ~ Wassily Kandinsky Russian-born French Expressionist Painter, 1866-1944
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“I applied streaks and blobs of colours onto the canvas with a palette knife, and I made them sing with all the intensity I could…” -- Wassily Kandinsky, Russian-born French Expressionist Painter, 1866-1944
Image credit: Sensational Color
“A parallel between color and music can only be relative – just as a violin can give warm shades of tone, so yellow has shades, which can be expressed by various instruments.” ~ Wassily Kandinsky Russian-born French Expressionist Painter, 1866-1944
Image credit: Sensational Color
“The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color. Our entire being is nourished by it. This mystic quality of color should likewise find expression in a work of art.” -- Hans Hofmann, German-born American painter and influential 20th century art teacher whose work paved the way for abstract expressionism, 1880-1966
Image credit: Hans Hoffmann Fair Use
“The greatest masterpieces were once only pigments on a palette.” -- Henry S. Hoskins, Stockbroker and Man of letters, 1875–1957
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“There is true color, there is nature without exaggeration, without forced brilliance! He is exact.” -- Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, French Neoclassical Painter, 1780-1867
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Indian yellow, banned. Cows were poisoned with mango leaves and the colour was made from their urine. It is the bright yellow in Indian miniatures. Although yellow occupies one-twentieth of the spectrum, it is the brightest colour.” -- Derek Jarman, English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author, 1942–1994
Image credit: Roman Gomez
“Violet has the shortest wavelength of the spectrum. Behind it, the invisible ultraviolet. Roses are Red, Violets are Blue. Poor violet, violated for a rhyme.” - Derek Jarman, English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author, 1942–1994
Image credit: Ernesto Bruschi
“Colors express the main psychic functions of man.” ~ Carl Jung Swiss Psychiatrist, 1875-1961
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“Almost without exception, blue refers to the domain of abstraction and immateriality.” -- Wassily Kandinsky, Russian-born French Expressionist Painter, 1866-1944
Image credit: Sensational Color
“Colors produce a corresponding spiritual vibration, and it is only as a step towards this spiritual vibration that the elementary physical impression is of importance.” ~ Wassily Kandinsky Russian-born French Expressionist Painter, 1866-1944
Image credit: Sensational Color
“In the hierarchy of colors, green represents the social middle class, self-satisfied, immovable, narrow…” ~ Wassily Kandinsky, Russian-born French Expressionist Painter, 1866-1944
Image credit: Sensational Color
