RUISDAEL: Painting the Harmony of Colours

Theme: Synchronization of bright colours on palatte with the light of nature.

The power of images to entertain and even control the minds of the viewers is a well-recognized concept. A frame of landscape painting often conveys meanings beyond those that are immediately apparent. Painters have often used the subject of landscape painting to suggest the brevity of human life against the permanence of the natural world. We can measure the futility of human endeavour comparing the same against self-renewing natural cycles.

View of Haarlem from the Dunes at Overeen by Jacob van Ruysdael

Capturing the acts of weather has remained a favourite subject for many artists. Extreme effects of the weather can also be used to communicate inspiring messages. Sometimes the message might not be clearly spelt in the object of painting itself; but by the masterly treatment of the subject, the painters have succeeded in creating such effects in the observers’ responses on seeing the painting. Remaining truly faithful to their subject and the art, these landscape painters have responded in a variety of ways to the challenge of depicting weather and its illusive atmospheric effect. (Images Courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Most of the landscape paintings present an ordered view of the nature, the Mother Earth. These paintings depict idealized places bathed in golden light or of a countryside, which bears the pleasant marks of habitations. But that cannot be the case always. The painters with romantic themes have used the untamed nature and the areas far from civilization for their purpose. Some of them have also used the painted wilderness of the remote areas as the symbol of fierceness and danger, too.

While executing a painting, every artist takes care of various themes and their intellectual meanings, too. Look here, in this landscape painting, the master artist Renoir had used everything he had in his stockpile. Like other impressionists this painter, Renoir also used unusual tonal colours to stir up moods and impressions. Under influence of Impressionism, the recreation of objective reality was nearly discouraged and was replaced by the practice of developing subjective response to a piece of work, the painting. It created magical effects on the canvases.

Painting the ‘European Landscapes’, Van Gogh had added magic into the art of painting. Van Gogh’s palette had expressive and emotive colours on it. Van Gogh used these colours as a master impressionist, painting his canvases in the style of the impressionist who were used to paint outside their studios. He used mostly brilliant colour to produce the striking light in his paintings.