The Colorist
Archive

A living archive of how artists work with color across time. Each artist profile scans publicly available works to trace dominant colors, a chromatic fingerprint, and the arc of a palette across a lifetime.A living archive of how artists work with color across time, tracing palettes, fingerprints, and lifetime arcs from public works.

Begin with an artist, carry a palette into the drawing system, or read the wider project.Begin with an artist, carry a palette into the drawing system, or read the wider project.

Scanning works…

Piet Mondrian

Mondrian reduced painting to its absolute essentials: black lines on white, filled with rectangles of pure red, blue, and yellow. His palette is a philosophy — primary colors as universal truth.

Palette: #AD935A #3B2F1E #635338 #B5B48F #C44431 #856634 #AD7C2B #C89317

  • Yellow Chrysanthemums in a Ginger Pot (1898): #C89317 #5A4C30 #B07C2C #936B36 #877441 #352E1D
  • Field with Young Trees in the Foreground (ca. 1907): #595044 #383426 #695D46 #23241D #957B68
  • Chrysanthemum (1906-42): #B59460 #AFB399 #BDB680 #B0A461 #92966E #7A8A7B
  • Windmolen at the Gein (1907): #B7A66B #746B4A #B6BA92 #382817 #968145 #5B471E
  • Blossoming Trees Before a Haystack (1903): #857B69 #2E2514 #3E3514 #544B3E #140B06 #5B5232
  • Brown and White Heifer (1904): #5E5436 #A99479 #786737 #433D2D #754F2C #7E7058
  • White Phloxes (1899): #B29259 #88693B #665232 #D2C895 #473B28 #EEF0CB
  • Chrysanthemum (1906): #B39662 #ACAE93 #C0BB8D #8A8D6C
  • Composition Checkerboard, Dark Colors (1919): #D6542E #C43830 #92687D #6B404F #8D4A4B #A13A2D
  • Composition with Red, Yellow, and Blue (1927): #D8D9D5 #CD4B45 #1D1C1F #D8CF8E #3E6C9F #3F383A
  • Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red, and Gray (1921): #E2E4E5 #E0CA5A #0B194A #BBBBB3 #3F3E41 #8D6E5F

The Palette

The Works

How the palette changed

Chromatic Comparison

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