The Art of Color: The Subjective Experience and Objective Rationale of Color by Johannes Itten

Author:Johannes Itten [Itten, Johannes]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 1974-01-14T23:00:00+00:00

Plate XIV

Piero della Francesca, 1410/11 - 1492;

Solomon Receiving the Queen of Sheba;

detail of a mural at Arezzo.

King Solomon possessed riches, power and wisdom. Prompted by curiosity and admiration, the Queen of Sheba comes to visit him. He receives her in a great imposing, richly decorated brocade mantle. This mantle gives an effect of flatness and impassiveness, and reveals a broad descent of blue robe. The cold, negative, unapprochable blue, painted in a hard, rectilinear shape, meets the eyes of the advancing Queen. Her delicately lilac-tinted cloak falls into confused folds as she bows respectfully to Solomon, who, reserved and all but unmoved, gives her his hand. The superior might of the King and the submission of the Queen are joined, in their urbanity and distinction, by the equal brilliances of the royal attire. Solomon’s attendants narrowly and expectantly observe the encounter. The Queen s gentlewomen, too, look on with interest. Only the blue-clad lady-in-waiting and the blue-accented gentleman remain coldly aloof from the proceedings.

The chromatic construction of this painting is extraordinary.

The male group at the left is painted in two complementary pairs: orange-brown/blue and purple-red/green.

The dull yellowish gray of Solomon’s brocade mantle is in complementary contrast with the Queen’s equally light lilac tint. Solomon’s yellowish gray suggests his mistrust, likewise expressed in the mask of his countenance. Moreover, his cool and reserved attitude could not be more plainly shown than by the vertical blue stripe of his robe. The Queen’s lilac betokens “spiritual infatuation.”

The central figures are flanked by the men and women on the left and right. The green dress of a lady answers the red cloak of one of the men. The color arpeggio is unified by the brown-red of the hall.

All of Francesca’s paintings have an expression of great calm, an effect not due to coloration alone but also to the static, monumental cast of his forms.

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