Kandinsky-inspired Thoughts on Color (LE)

​Vincent van Gogh’s “Bridge in the Rain” painting is a study of a19th century print by Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige called “Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake”.  Van Gogh took inspiration from Hiroshige for the form and content of his painting, but the emotion conveyed by the Dutch painter is far different from the original.

I chose to talk about these two pieces of art in particular, because their differences distinctly manifest the color theory which Kandinsky spoke of in the sixth part of his essay.  Even from the first glance, the Van Gogh painting appears to depict agloomy tempest, while Hiroshige’s print tells the story of gettingcaught in a light but sudden burst of spring rain.  Van Gogh’s painting is brewing.  The storm has been on the horizon for a long time, slowly building to such great immensities until the sky blurs with the mountains in that torrential downpour.  On the other hand, Hiroshige’s print is light and frenzied, like a flute composition inspired by Kandinsky.  The pedestrians might be caught in a light summer rain, but there is little more gravity to the situation than some wet clothes.  The raftsman seen on the left side of the print is still going about his day, perhaps fishing or simply crossing the body of water.  Despite the rain, the bridge scene in the original print retains its original form, pre-storm.  In van Gogh’s painting, however, the raftsman is dwarfed by the expanse of the rising sea about him.  There is more contrast between the color of his raft and the water, but the texture that van Gogh employed to describe the waves is sometimes even wider than the boat on which the fisherman perches.  We can see that Hiroshige placed a strong emphasis on line, from the dark outline of the raft.  Van Gogh also outlined his raft, but much more faintly.  The burnt umber surrounding his raft and boater sit almost below the surface of the colors which really describe the forms.  The difference between the two artworks’ color schemes is perhaps the more distinct and striking difference.  

The local color of both is some form of blue, but while the original print leans ever so slightly towards the red side of the color spectrum, with some faint pink in the railings, skin and raft, the painted copy strongly emphasizes yellow.  Van Gogh’s water extends to an almost kelly green, intermixed with pastel yellow-green.  The two artist’s differing choice in color is also clearly illustrated in the shadows displayed at the very top of the two pieces: Hiroshige again chose to tend towards the red side of the color spectrum and the dark storm clouds resting above the scene are purple, while Van Gogh’s storm clouds lean hard into a truly blue blue.  I am reminded of what Kandinsky described as the deep, heavenly blue color.  In van Gogh’s upper sky, there is the ever so slight tint of deep green.  This is a whisper of yellow, barely making the color knowable to the viewer, but only barely as in a dream.  In terms of Kandinsky’s color chart, the van Gogh painting is neatly arranged from the deep blue of the top which recedes dramatically away from us,to the misty light blue mountains and hash marked sky, both of which remain distantly knowable but distorted to the viewer, as a dream.  Next, the green water sits solidly in the middle, neither receding into itself and blurring away as the mountains and sky, nor bursting forth like the bridge.  In some sense, this is the embodiment of Kandinsky’s static green.  This is an embodiedwater, threatening to blend with the mountains, the sky, to swallow the boater.  Kandinsky’s stated difference between yellow and blue is seen very clearly when comparing Hiroshige’s glassy, silent water to the choppy, swelling [water] depicted by van Gogh.  The former stays in place, or even recedes from the viewer, because of the strong emphasis on blue.  If we take Kandinsky on his word, there is an element of anticipation in Hiroshige’s water, made evident by the white mixed in with the blue, creating a watchful, patient atmosphere. Van Gogh’s water could not be further from this.  This is a sea lost in a fit of rage.  The viewer instantly wants to ascribe human emotions to the water, because it jumps out with streaks of yellow and green.  The final element of color in the painting, and the most forward is the bright yellow bridge emerging from the right side of the painting.  It spans the brewing green channelto the distant blue mountains, the starkly human yellow stands out against the chaos of the storm, bringing the pedestrians to safety.  In comparison to Hiroshige’s depiction of the bridge, this bridge seems out of place, strangely human in an alien world. Arguably, the brightness of this bridge is necessitated by the strength of the colors behind it.  The muted pink-yellow tones of Hiroshige’s bridge would have found no place among the conspicuous colors of van Gogh’s painting.

Hiroshige’s print evokes an almost non-verbal experience, felt by everyone at one point or another.  It is not an artwork which demands an immediate reaction from its audience.  This is a print of observation.  The subject is the act of seeing, of seeing, of watching the everyday.  It does not attempt to take the viewer through an emotional saga carefully mapped out by vivid colors.  This is a print of raindrops unleashed suddenly from an otherwise clear sky, of the sharp patters when they fall on the smooth surface of the water, of the shared experience of something completely normal.  Arguably, this says far more than the van Gogh painting about the “human experience” in far less words.