Complementary colors: cinema, painting and photography

May 23, 2020

Complementary colors in cinema, photography and painting

Complementary colors is another great chapter of color theory in art. Two complementary colors put together create contrast and dynamism at the same time balancing the whole scene. It’s a lively and harmonious contrast which contributes to create that aesthetic beauty sought by Giorgio De Chirico in his paintings.

Wikipedia definition: The traditional color wheel model dates to the 18th century and is still used by many artists today. This model designates red, yellow and blue as primary colors with the primary–secondary complementary pairs of red–green, blue-orange, and yellow–purple. In this traditional scheme, a complementary color pair contains one primary color (yellow, blue or red) and a secondary color (green, purple or orange). The complement of any primary color can be made by combining the two other primary colors. For example, to achieve the complement of yellow (a primary color) one could combine red and blue.

In this article I refer to the traditional RYB color model: complementary color pairs are red/green, yellow/purple, and blue/orange. I’ve made three examples below with red/green pair to explain better what I want to say when I talk about the use of complementary colors in photography, cinema and painting.

Photography

Let’s start with one of the most famous pictures in the world. It was taken by Steve McCurry for National Geographic. The photo is a portrait of Sharbat Gula, an Afghan refugee. Her magnetic gaze is the centre of this wonderful image, full of anger and fear at the same time. Steve McCurry is a genius in the use of colors. There is a beautiful warm light on her face, the chromatic contrast is given by green (eyes, background, some dress details) and red (dress). These two complementary colors put together create contrast accentuating in this way the drama of the image. This harmonious contraposition between red and green create a strong and wonderful visual impact that literally catches viewer’s eyes.

Cinema

Looking at cinema I chose as example a wonderful frame extracted by the corean film I Saw the devil. The two dominant colors, green (sheet) and red (blood and light), create a beautiful visual impact. But this chromatic contrast is also a conceptual contrast; in fact green is tranquillity and red is violence.

Painting

In painting I can make many examples like the use of complementary colors in De Chirico. In this article I chose to talk about The Dance by Henri Matisse; he was an exponent of fauves, his paintings are usually characterized by saturated and vivid colors. This work of art has different versions (Moma in NYC, Hermitage in ST. Petersburg…). He put together complementary colors but also warm and cold shades to give more dinamysm and vivacity to the scene. Look also at the wonderful shapes and curves. The use of colors with the shapes and curves create the idea of movement: the dance. Again the use of complementary colors (plus warm/cold contrast) is important for the aesthetic but also for the “message” of the painting.