Henri Matisse. Marine (Bord de mer), 1906.
Henri Matisse loved to paint by the seaside as it shed its colorways with the introduction of different light. The horizon bled into a menagerie of deep orange to cool violet and down to the bottomless blue-green depths of the ocean. Lush tropical blooms emerged in the salted air to challenge the palette of the natural world. When you make a choice of color for your own studied uniform, the idea that it must attend to your particular skin tone is outmoded. Bedeck yourself in shades that strike strong visual notes as fervent energy is created by highly saturated hues. Shift your thinking to color as your new neutral or mix lucid pops with staple dark tones.
Left: Henry Matisse. Anemones and Woman, Harmony in Blue, 1937Matisse's Villa on the French Riviera was brick red with hand-painted pale yellow and seafoam green two dimensional shutters overlooking the octane sea. Concoct your own color theory by pairing hushed blush tones with their sister shade in deep red. Let lemon yellow and dark navy marry to become the chroma of your effortless new day suit. You are no longer bound to the color wheel of opposites. Primary casts are no longer tucked away from an electric or eccentric version of familiar shades. Use nature as your design guide. Fearlessly suit up in monochromatic blocks for a modern approach to color dressing.
Frida Kahlo. What the Water Gave Me, 1938.
Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera’s every detail of living and painting was filled with endless drenches of color. In Mexico City, the house they designed sits in a quiet neighborhood. A modernist architectural wonder, half burgundy and half bright blue joined by a white bridge. Diego’s side is filled with glass jars of hand ground pigments. His paint palette still in place next to his easel as if he has just stepped away for a breath. Frida's bathroom has a porcelain bathtub complete with the famed painting of her feet in its full surrealist motif hand-painted above the bath hardware on the wall. We later see her repaint this scene in her signature intuitive manner in What the Water Gave Me. Artists ache to wash their world in color and feverishly long for pigments as their guest.
Words Brit Parks
