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The Impressionists used several techniques to balance warm and cool tones in their paintings:
Impressionist pages on this site:
1. They juxtaposed complementary colours (opposites on the colour wheel like blue and orange) throughout their compositions. This created a vibrant interplay between warm and cool hues.[1]
2. They avoided mixing colours with black, which would dull the tones. Instead, they mixed complementary colours like blue and orange to create luminous grays that retained warmth or coolness.[2]
3. They incorporated a range of warm colours like reds, oranges, and yellows alongside cool colours like blues, greens, and purples within the same painting. This balanced the overall temperature.[4]
4. They used limited palettes of just a few warm and cool colours, like ultramarine blue and burnt sienna, allowing the colours to optically mix into vibrant warm and cool hues.[1]
5. They layered strokes of warm and cool colours, allowing the eye to optically blend them into atmospheric grays that captured subtle temperature shifts.[2]
6. They avoided blacks and browns for shadows, instead using colours like blues, purples, and greens to create cool shadows contrasted with warm sunlit areas.[4]
By carefully balancing complementary warm and cool colours throughout their compositions using optical colour mixing, the Impressionists achieved a sense of vibrancy and harmony that captured the ephemeral effects of light and atmosphere.
Sources
Sources
[1] How to Balance Warm and Cool Colours - Will Kemp Art School https://willkempartschool.com/how-to-balance-warm-and-cool-colours/
[2] The Impressionists’ Palette: Capturing True Light with colour https://www.malcolmdeweyfineart.com/blog/the-impressionists-palette-capturing-true-light-with-colour
[3] What’s the Impressionist Way of Painting with colour? - Artists Network https://www.artistsnetwork.com/art-techniques/colour-mixing/whats-the-impressionist-way-of-painting-with-colour/
[4] Impressionist Art Movement - Masters Of Light And colour https://drawpaintacademy.com/impressionist-art-movement/
[5] Impressionist colour (article) | Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/avant-garde-france/impressionism/a/impressionist-colour
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