

Katsushika Hokusai’s “’The Great Wave’ is forever crashing in people’s imagination” is among his favorites, though that would change depending on the hour of the day. Translation? Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” for example, uses emerald green, “which is toxic Indian yellow, which is derived from the urine of cows fed nothing but mango leaves, and Prussian blue, which has a fantastic, alchemical back story to it,” he noted. “Artymology” involves studying pigments “as a means to get at possibilities in art that you might not otherwise get to,” Grovier explained. The freelancer and columnist’s portfolio includes writing a series on color for the BBC about five years ago, and more poems about how the Italian Renaissance forefather Giotto’s use of color “sank into his bones and was the forensic element that helped identify his skeleton after it was discovered.” That ideology also applies to fashion, from his perspective. It’s incredible how if you dig into the origins of color, it can in fact change the way you read a painting,” Grovier said.

Most don’t consider how paintings are comprised of “fantastically, far-flung elements that have come from extraordinary places and have had remarkable adventures before they reach the work we are looking at. It’s a luminous pixelated pulse,” he said. We think of color as a wave that hits our eyes.

Think about the material constituents that paintings are comprised of - especially now when we access art on computer screens. Although it is widely discussed how knowing the back story of a key word enriches a reader’s interpretation of literature and alights possibilities that wouldn’t have appeared with a surface reading, that isn’t the case with art. Just as the meaning of a word can change a reader’s interpretation of a work, “artymology” can have a similar effect. Inside Gucci Cosmos' Star-studded Exhibition Opening Swatch x Jean-Michel Basquiat Collection Reimagines Iconic Motifs Apparently, prized Impressionist paintings and the burgeoning “dopamine dressing” trend in Asia aren’t so far apart.Ĭounter to many people’s inclination to see colors strictly on a surface level, author Kelly Grovier digs into the forensics of hues with “The Art of Colour.” Reached in his Belfast, Northern Ireland, home, the Oxford-educated writer and poet drew from his literature background, namely etymology.
