Yellow paintings grew brighter during the Industrial Revolutions. Prior to the mid-1800s, yellows were paler, murkier and often fades. Many were also toxic to artists. Industrialization sewed some arguably bad seeds including greenhouse gases, the depletion of natural resources, and rabid consumerism. On the flip side, it brought new and improved yellow paints into which many great artists dipped their brushes.
Following are just a few joyful Yellow Paintings in case you need a break from sickly yellow news.
A New Pigment Finally Splashed On Famous Palettes
For much of early art history, Yellow Paintings were not so cheerful. But the Industrial Revolution spawned major advances in synthetic pigment chemistry. Turner’s Yellow appeared in 1781, followed by Chrome Yellow in 1797. In 1831, a new golden yellow pigment called Aureolin was first synthesized in Germany. With it came a cascade of bigger, brighter yellows.
By the 1850s it was available to artists and with that came a new wave of yellow paintings. Impressionism was in swing by the 1860s, with many of its greatest painters using lighter, and more vivid colors that were newly available.
According to the Blick site:
“In “The Art of Landscape Painting in Oil Colours” (published in 1863 by Winsor & Newton), Aureolin was lauded as “… one of the latest and most important contributions of science to the Artist’s palette… ranks in importance with Genuine Ultramarine.” (Blick)
Although much improved, the new yellow was not without issues.
“Within a few decades, Cadmium Yellow and synthetic-organic pigments like Hansa Yellow pushed Aureolin off the list of most artists’ favorites.” (Blick)
In the early part of the 20th century, yellow paintings took on reddish orange hues by heating the yellow cadmium sulphide pigment with selenium. Henri Matisse, and Piet Mondrian were among the artists who featured these warm tones.
Yellow Press Took Advantage Of New Yellows In Print
It was a time of intense competition for eyeballs and Joseph Pulitzer was definitely a man who understood publicity. Although he published serious journalism, he also utilized sensational stories to win readers for his New York World.
One of the most famous was Nellie Bly’s Race Around The World to beat Jules Verne’s fictional record of Eighty Days.
The term yellow journalism came from a comic in Pulitizer’s paper. Created by Richard Fenton Outcault, “Hogan’s Alley,” featured “The yellow kid” who dressed in an oversized yellow nightshirt and lived in a slum common in 19th-century New York City. It ran from 1895 to 1898.
According to Bruce Boyce in I Take History With My Coffee, Morrel Goddard, then editor of the New York World, wanted to use the latest tool for winning readers. It was a new type of printing press “allowed for for printing on two sides of a page at once and better color quality.”
“At first, it was suggested that the new supplement would focus on women’s fashion, but Goddard, keenly attuned to what the public wanted, desired to have it modeled after the comic weeklies. Over time, this comic weekly section of the newspaper would evolve into the “comics.”” (I Take History)
Subject matter, characters and leading-edge technology – along with the bright color that pleased fans of Yellow Paintings, turned the comic strip into a money maker for Pulitzer.
It also became the symbol of Yellow Journalism and the war for readers waged between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.
Other Posts:
The following posts In Racing Nellie Bly are related to Yellow Paintings
Competition between newspapers was fierce in the 1890s. Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal went head to head for readers. Read All About It!
Early Lobbyist Edward R. Phelps had no idea that he was in the crosshairs of a Nellie Bly exposé when she visited his office in 1888. Read All About It!
While many prominent academies supported the sophisticated painting style and subjects of the Gilded Age, he celebrated common people in the streets and in nature. Read All About It!
La Grenouillére Frog Pond was a trendy destination on the island by the same name on the Seine. It attracted great artists including Claude Monet and Pierre Auguste Renoir. Read All About It!
