That Touch of Red

"By the Sea, Honfleur"
Pastel on canvas, 45 x 37 cm
Eval Gonzales, 1881

I have often noticed how one small splotch of red in a painting can make all the difference. A dot of red can attract the viewer's eye, and direct the visual journey through the painting. It can draw attention to a focal point. In a painting that is otherwise composed of cool or subtle colors, that bit of red can serve as a counterpoint that makes the other colors come alive. Given my fascination with red, I was interested to come across an essay about the Impressionist painter Eva Gonzales, and her use of red. It was entitled "Expressive Red". **

The top painting is a wonderful example of using red in a carefully managed, restricted way. The painting is mostly cool blue/green colors. But the painter picked out a detail of the clothing, two thirds of the way up the height of the canvas, and used red as a "revealer". Voila! The red bow
seems to spread its warmth throughout the canvas.

"In the Wheatfields, Dieppe"
Oil on Canvas, 46 x 54 cm
Eva Gonzales, 1875-76

Here's another wonderful painting by Eva Gonzales, which also makes masterful use of the color red. Can you even imagine this painting without the red shawl? How dull it would seem. And I personally love the echo of the red in the distant structures. It sets up a darting of the eye from near to far, and back again. Genius.

"Reading in the Garden"
Pastel on Canvas, 37 x 54 cm
Eva Gonzales, 1880-81

I will close with another tour de force in the careful placement of red. Just above, Gonzales has used a "determinedly avant-garde" approach, placing two large shapes of red in opposition to each other, amidst a mostly green canvas. (It's no coincidence that red and green are complementary colors). The essay noted that this use of color "anticipated the Nabi sense of color". Once again, the eye can't help but move back and forth between the two reds. A critic at the time called the red of her umbrella a "musical counterpoint" balanced against the red hat. Yes, lovely. There are lessons to be learned here.

By the way, Eva Gonzales was a student of the great Edouard Manet. If you are not familiar with her, it may be because her life was tragically cut short, and she did not live to produce a full, mature body of work. She died in childbirth at age 34.


**Quotations are from the essay, written by Marie-Caroline Sainsaulieu. It is from the exhibition catalog for the show "Women Impressionists". Stay tuned for more on these women and their work.