Yellow is largely associated with joy, light, boldness and mirth, yet it can also bring something sickly to a composition. It was almost a signature hue for Vincent van Gogh, as a new exhibition at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam makes clear.
Yellow. Beyond Van Gogh’s Colour shows the painter’s golden fields and immortal sunflowers alongside work from peers such as Klint, Signac and Kandinsky, predecessors including Turner, and contemporary artists like Olafur Eliasson, all complemented by fashion, music, even fragrance. In doing so, it asks us to consider how ideas around a colour can shift, and how these shades can stir something within. As Eliasson has noted: “I see blue, I see red, but I feel yellow.”
Yellow. Beyond Van Gogh’s Colour runs at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, from 13 February to 17 May
Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers
The Yellow Room by Marc Chagall
Cuno Amiet’s The Yellow Hill
Colour Experiment no. 78 by Olafur Eliasson
Large Study by Wassily Kandinsky
A ball gown (creator unknown) from the end of the 19th century
Images courtesy of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Robert Bayer; Kunstmuseum Solothurn/David Aebi; Olafur Eliasson; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Amsterdam Museum