The 4 master artists who used nature-inspired color palettes
As designers, we can always get inspired by the master artists and their relationship with colors.
Many artists in history were obsessed with colors in nature. When viewing their masterpieces, we could discover their intense passions, unconcealable emotions, and their staunch belief in the power of colors.
As a product designer, I also constantly think about what natural color patterns can be used to better connect with users. To get inspired, I want to take a whirlwind journey through modern art history, drill insights into what colors meant to some of the most creative geniuses, and discuss what can be leveraged to our design practices. 😉
Claude Monet: the harmonious, analogous colors
Claude Monet is among one of the most well-known Impressionism artists. Around the 1860s, he and a group of young artists decided to paint what they saw, thought, and felt in a simple and intuitive way.
It was a huge break away from their Realist predecessors. Claude Monet and his peer artists were much more interested in painting landscape and contemporary life, rather than depicting historical and mythological scenes.
If we take a close look at Monet’s paintings, we can observe his focus on picturing nature and capturing the fleeting effects of natural light. The color palettes on his works were often soft and glowing, which convey a more intimate feel to the viewers.
Meanwhile, he often used analogous colors to draw natural sceneries. The “Water Lillies” series is one of the stunning examples. In the following “Water Lillies” painting created in 1908, we can sense the beauty of nature through the softly fluid blues and greens, with cream and a bit of pink. The smooth transitions between analogous colors create a sense of gentleness and calm.
💡 Designer takeaway
Analogous color schemes are often found in nature and are harmonious and pleasing to the eye. Claude Monet’s works can be a great place to find inspiration from if we want to convey a calm, gentle feel in the interface we’re designing.
Van Gogh: an obsession with complementary colors
As one of the pioneers of Post-Impressionism, Vincent Van Gogh was well-known for his bold use of colors. In almost all of his paintings, he used “yellow” and “blue” with different tints, tones, and shades, since these two colors appear the most often in nature, and they brought him childhood and Dutch memories.
Yellow and blue — a classic pair of complementary colors, gave Van Gogh profound emotions to the art:
“The dome of the sky has an extraordinary blue; the color of the sunlight is that of pale sulfur, sweet and enchanting, as the combination between the heavenly blue and the yellow in Vermeer or Delft’s paintings. I fail to resume so beautiful.”
— Writes by Van Gogh to his brother Theo.
If we further analyze Van Gogh’s pieces, we can see how he used the power of complementary colors and the color wheel to heighten the visual effect of simultaneous contrast.
I’ll take the following painting “Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles” (1888) as an example. Unlike Monet who always reaches a harmonious peacefulness in every angle of the painting, Van Gogh wanted the viewers to move their eyes around the painting, not just by the composition, but by the use of complementary colors.
On the far right side of the painting, we can see a strong saturated orange sitting right next to a pure french ultramarine, which causes a shimmering effect and gives the evening window light a glow. Meanwhile, Van Gogh used a combination of warm and cool colors, which gives more “visual depth” to the painting — the cool color recedes into the background, while the warm colors come forward.
💡 Designer takeaway
Using complementary color pairings is a surefire way to create delightful experiences and evoke people’s emotions. We need to be aware of what types of emotions we want to elicit from the users before deciding the pair of primary colors we want to use. In addition, using a combination of warm and cool colors can help add “visual depth” to the interface we design.
Helen Frankenthaler: the undulations of color
Helen Frankenthaler was one of the pioneers in the new generation of abstract painting in 1970s, which is now known as the “Color Field” movement. Frankenthaler explored different color palettes all the time, and her use of color kept evolved throughout her career.
Just like many other great artists in history, Frankenthaler painted nature using nature-inspired colors. In her words, she often took inspiration “from the unique landscapes of Provincetown, Massachusetts”. However, she was not simply capturing the contours of the landscapes, she focused more on her emotional reactions to the scenes, and pour them onto the canvases. And in fact, it is her sense of natural spontaneity that makes her works so compelling.
Let’s take one of her most famous works — “The Bay” (1963) for example. The title of this painting already reveals the theme. However, as viewers, we may keep wondering: What kind of bay area does it refer to? Does the swelling amorphous blue mass stand for something beyond itself? Does the moss green indicate something far away?
By using modulated hues to capture abstract forms, Frankenthaler not only captured nature with innovative, abstract forms, she also created a large space for imagination.
💡 Designer takeaway
The natural, modulated hues used by Helen Frankenthaler — some media also use the term “soak stain” technique, creates ethereal yet saturated compositions that are appealing, soft, and bold all at once. Even half of a decade has passed, the color palettes used by Frankenthaler are still modern and refreshing. If we ever want to use wave, abstract patterns to spark users’ emotions and imaginations, Frankenthaler’s works are a “color library” we can always get inspiration from.
Georgia O’Keeffe: play with a wide range of brightness in colors
Georgia O’Keeffe is probably the most famous for her paintings focused on enlarged flowers. The strong, vibrant tertiary color schemes she used in the paintings created a sense of energy and vitality.
However, I am also interested in O’keeffe’s landscape paintings. In these paintings, we could see how she was largely influenced by her teacher Arthur Wesley Dow, who was an advocate for Japanese art — focusing on three principles of composition: line, color, and 濃淡 (a Japanese design concept involving the play and placement of light and dark elements).
In the painting “Lake George (formerly Reflection Seascape)” (1922), we could see how O’keefee used cyan blue as a baseline and played with a wide range of brightness in it. Also, she mastered the use of “dark color” and “bright color”, which raced across the middle of the canvas.
Same in the painting “Lake George Reflection” (1921–1922). Without the black and white added in the middle of the canvas, this painting would have the same glorious intensity and counterbalance.
It worth mentioning that O’Keefe was very creative and bold in depicting the same theme (Lake George) using totally different approaches. The shape of the subject was not that different in these two paintings, however, because O’Keefe applied very different color palettes, the paintings elicited different kinds of emotions from us: the first painting conveyed a feeling of calmness; the second painting used shades of red and green to express power, while the analogous colors (red against purple, blue with green) reduced the tension.
💡 Designer takeaway
Colors help tell a story, and even when we’re designing the same theme/topic, we could use various color palettes to evoke different emotions from the viewers. Also, when designing visualizations, rainbow colors may not be a good option since human eyes aren’t good at detecting the edges of different color hues side by side, and that’s when we could play with the brightness within single color ranges. Looking at her landscape paintings, can you also see the mountain shapes are similar to the area graphs we use a lot in data visualization?
Useful resources
As natural color palettes are widely applied in design, it is always beneficial to study master artists who used nature-inspired color palettes, so that we can cultivate aesthetic sense and be more creative in using colors. Here are some useful links to help you pick color palettes from art masterpieces:
- ColorLisa: a great resource to check and learn color palette masterpieces from the world’s greatest artists (rank in alphabetic order)
- ColorSnap: a useful tool for designers (especially interior designers) to pick color palettes from either artworks or other kinds of photos.
- Coolers: a website that allows you to upload any picture and then generate a color palette automatically/manually. It’s good that you can export the color palette by creating collages.
- Canva: quick color palette generator. You can easily upload any picture, and it will use the hues in the photo to create a palette containing 4 colors.
- iColorpalette: another tool that allows you to upload any picture and generate a color palette. You can manually select colors from the image and download the color palette in different formats.
- Brandfolder: quick color palette generator. You can easily upload any picture to generate a color palette. It also allows you to easily copy the HEX code for colors.
