We've really come full circle now, with almost as many questions about the colour violet as with the earlier colour indigo. What does violet really look like? Like lavender? Lilac? Mauve? Amethyst? Burgundy?
This portion of the fresco unearthed in Pompeii's Villa of the Mysteries offers a range of possibilities.
Less complicated, this example of the colour field paintings of 20th c. artist Mark Rothko offers a simpler choice.
Going back to Square One, I'm going to invoke Sir Isaac Newton, who devised the colour wheel as a way to visualize the sequence and relationships of colours in the spectrum.
Then, two centuries later, there's Johannes Itten who spent just as much time and effort, splashing among the colours and formulating exercises and structures to frame them.
Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall – or maybe a purple ground beetle outside the window – if these two colour theorists could be brought together?
Well, that's what I decided to do for the final piece in the Spectral Creatures series – borrow some violet tones (leaning towards red-violet) and put Isaac and Johannes in their midst. The preliminary layout:
The first layers of colour:--
And the final painting: "The Theoreticians" – Spectral Series, copyright 2026.
What a somber twosome! In contrast, let's find some joyously beautiful violet spin-offs from master artists. Just in time for the start of this series, my friend Y sent me a beautiful Hungarian postage stamp with a painting titled, "Lady in Purple" by fascinating early 20th c. artist Pal Szinyei Merse.
And who can resist Matisse's "Woman in a Violet Coat"?
This series has had its ups and downs (greys and whites?) but it's been rewarding for the time I've spent focussed on colour choices and colour mixing. With a pat on the back to all who have stuck with me, let me quote John Ruskin:--
"The purest and most thoughtful minds are
those which love colour the most."
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