arbitrary colorist

portrait of Alexander Reid

"(...) instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I see before my eyes, I use color more arbitrarily, in order to express myself forcibly. I paint him as he is, as faithfully as I can, to begin with. But the picture is not yet finished. To finish it I am going to be the arbitrary colorist. I exaggerate the fairness of the hair, I even get to orange tones, chromes, and pale citron-yellow. Behind the head instead of painting the ordinary wall of the mean room, I paint infinity, a plain background of the richest intensest blue that I can contrive, and by this simple combination of the bright head against the rich blue background, I get a mysterious effect, like a star in the depths of an azure sky." 

Vincent Van Gogh