The Power of One!

My dear Planksters,

I trust you are all well!

The other day whilst on one of my walks through the park, I was struck by one particular view of a field covered with shrubs and surrounded by trees. The scene in itself wasn’t very remarkable, pretty, yes, but nothing out of the ordinary. What caught my attention was that the entire vista was green.

Not another colour in sight – just green - olive, emerald, sage, mint, lime, pine, crocodile, fern… I think every shade was there!

This isn’t the actual picture but you get the idea. I love how with one single colour; every detail can be seen - nothing is lost.

This got me wondering how many other single-colour scenes there are in nature, these photos highlight the power of one colour.

Red Blue Yellow Brown

When placed in the hand of an artist, a whole world can be depicted!

I’ve recently been looking at monochrome paintings, and they are powerful. Here are a few that stood out.

Isaac Levitan’s 1895 ‘Footpath in a Forest. Ferns.' warmed my heart as it echoed what I had seen – beauty in green.

From Pablo Picasso’s famous ‘Blue Period’, ‘The Tragedy’ was painted in 1903 and the colour really highlights the pain evident in the painting.

As a Vincent Van Gogh fan, how could I fail to include one of his paintings? – This is his ‘Reaper’, the first of a series of three oil paintings depicting the same wheat field. This one featuring mostly yellow was painted in 1889.

Lastly, a more recent painting from 1984, Mark Tansey’s ‘Action Painting II’ – Simply brilliant!

When limited to one colour only, you’re forced to think a lot harder about the tones and textures that are present. I love the fact that in nature, it’s not simply that one scene is viewed as one colour as in the paintings, but that each object present is actually that colour, and it’s breath-taking to be able to witness the genius that is Nature’s art whilst out and about on a humble ramble!

With a thoughtful expression, often happily misinterpreted as depicting ‘depth of character’, but which, is in reality, merely contemplating ‘cake’,

Thalamus Plank.