Astonishing Mango

“I Will Astonish Paris with an Apple.”  Paul Cézanne

What strikes me most regarding Cezanne was the way he spoke about and communicated form and space, changing the structure of planes of objects to express that idea and drag the viewer into his reality. I think his quote “I Will Astonish Paris with an Apple.” was not about the apple but showing a different perception of the world and expressing it in a meaningful way. And, is that not the biggest mission of an artist or at least one of its rewards?

I will be fine just astonishing myself with a Mango on a piece of plywood. I truly enjoyed painting this fruit, the color and form with it's gradations and transitions, it was fascinating to paint. All the nice weaves of complementary color with interesting neutrals – just the thing to get some palette mixing nirvana going.

When you find the truth of a thing, you will find the beauty in it.

The mango painting was done with a limited palette of Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Yellow Light,

Ultramarine Blue, and Burnt Sienna

This limited palette is a color triad of high chroma and fairly vivid hues, however when mixed with white or neutralized and grayed down it is a remarkable balanced and harmonious palette. There is a nice range of transparent dark's and opaque lights representing a wide range of values. With the addition of a earth color or gray you will be surprised at the broad spectrum of color you can achieve with this limited palette. Overall a great compact palette that will teach much about color mixing and can pretty much reach anything you want.

You see many artist producing color charts to gain understanding of color mixing, which is a great exercise and should be done. But nothing accelerates that understanding more than practical experience of color matching and observation.

Keep in mind that all color is relative, every color has an inherent characteristic when seen in isolation such as a red that is warm leaning towards orange or a blue that is cool with a bias to green but those cool or warm attributes will change with the interaction of the colors surrounding it.

You must ask yourself comparative questions, what is the name of this color? Literally name it on the color wheel. Then ask is it a cooler version or warm version of that hue? Is lighter? Darker? How intense a color or how gray?

Color is always comparative and relative ………..

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) Biography

Explore - Question - Learn - Enjoy, Jim 

Astonishing Mango oil on panel 8 x 10 inches ©jimserrettstudio

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