If David’s neoclassicism emphasised form or ‘disegno’, Delacroix was a colourist. Shown here in details of his paintings.
Colourist
In the early 20th century, painters started using intense colours, often raw from the tube, and those shifted to give green flesh and blue horses.
Chroma is hard to separate from lightness. An important painting point is that mixing paints cannot increase chroma. Instead it tends to reduce it towards muddy grey.
Although lightness and chroma can usually be approached successfully using methodical approaches, long experience has shown that hue is much more hit or miss. Developing a good ‘eye’ for colours is generally much more important.
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