... it may be said that choice of palette is a matter of temperament. Each student must experiment with the various pigments and select those which he personally finds most sympathetic. But, in general, it is best to eliminate all the secondary or compound colors, such as green, purple, etc.; and this for two reasons: first, because a painter secures more vibration in his work by mixing his own secondary and tertiary tones; and, second, because if one has a green on the palette, one is very apt to use that special green, instead of searching out the various greens (and they are infinite) that may enter into his picture motive. It may also be stated as an axiom, that the more experienced the artist, the more limited is his palette. The expert cannot be bothered with useless pigments. He selects the few that are really essential and throws aside the rest as useless lumber. The distinguished Swedish artist, Zorn, uses but two colors- vermilion and yellow ochre; his two other pigments, black and white, being the negation of color. With this palette, simple to the point of poverty, he nevertheless finds it possible to paint an immense variety of landscape and figure subjects, and I have never heard his color criticized as being anemic or lacking in power. Many other painters limit themselves to five colors; and when the palette is extended beyond seven, it is safe to presume that one is skirting the borders either of the amateur or the student class.
Birge Harrison, Landscape Painting, 1909
9 comments:
Are you serious, Zorn used 2 colors and black and white?
I am going to have to revisit his work. I never knew that. That is remarkable to say the least.
POWERFUL!
Word up! I have been defending against a plethora of "full Chroma" palette recommendations from many of my graduate professors at Laguna Collage of Art and Design. Thank god for Thomas Stubbs, and Stephen Douglas for not following suit to the other faculty in claiming the contemporary array of oil colors is a cornucopia of possibilities to the student painter. What an oversight of confusing information! I learned the hard way and now use a happy limited palette. Thanks
Just looked into Zorn's work... and WOW. Incredible what one can do with just a few colors at their disposal. Absolutely amazing.
The first time I even heard of Zorn, it was in the context of his very limited palette. I think he tried to keep the number of pigments as small as possible, but he was not adverse to adding other colors. In fact, of the 243 tubes of paint left in his studio after his death, 17 were cobalt blue.
Here are some other articles on Zorn's palette:
http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2008/12/inside_paintbal.html
http://americanartist.typepad.com/american_artist
/2006/06/swedens_sargent.html
http://aseparatepieceart.blogspot.com/2007/07/article-zorn-palette.html
I agree Mathew, there is no proof that Zorn always used just two colors plus black and white.
Zorn was a watercolorists first. He was using this medium before he used oil paints. His work in that medium is full of color as one would expect.
It's clear to me that he used blues, you can't mix a high chroma blue like Cobalt, it can't be done.
Personally I think it's better to understand color from the three attributes of hue, value and chroma and then work from there.
I like symmetry in my palette if I'm not using a premixed one. So I go for high and low chroma paints.
Painting landscape is hard enough without limiting your palette to what Zorn may have or may have not done. One could do it, no doubt, but why limit yourself to some ideal.
The Harrison book is intersting; I also own the Edgar Payne and John Carlson books, I find myself reading them and going to them more than the Harrison book.
Interesting note, Harrison was Carlson's teacher.
Carlson's palette:
1.Cad Yellow lt.
2.Cad Yellow Medium
3.Yellow Ochre or Raw Sienna
4.Cad Red Lt.
5.Indian Red
6.Alizarine Crimson
7.Burnt Sienna
8.Veridian
9.Cobalt, Ultramarine or Permanet Blue
he calls these Violet blues, but I don't think of Cobalt as a violet Blue.
10.Prussian Blue (green blue)
Black, Ivory or Lamp
White Titanium or Lead
You had me at "hello" (or at "it may be said" in this case)...
Thank you for sharing with us this gem of a quote. Although even a casual observer (after a trip to Wikipedia) would see that Zorn used other colors too, the message is undiluted -- a mixed color will always be more interesting than a straight-out-of-the-tub one.
I have both the Carlson and Payne books, but haven't read either yet. I'm embarrassed to say I've had them for years. The Payne book has become a joke for me; it's my "cut to the front of the line" book. I bring it to every doctor appointment, dentist appointment, car inspection, even when getting pizza. As long as I have the book, I never have to wait. If I forget it though, I usually have lots of time to kill. At that rate, I'll never finish it!
You should read them, do the work. The Carlson book is a wealth of information on landscape painting. Everyone should do the composition sketches in the Payne book.
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