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For an art noob, can someone help me understand why the perspective is off in so many of them? I know that he's a master and I don't want to contest that, but the perspective being off feels a little...amateurish? Or is that an intentional choice? If it is, would love to know the 'why' of it
On one of the paintings[0] you can see electricity poles that look fairly modern. I didn't realise that was already the case back then! [0]: https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/d0420V1962
I was once in the Orsay museum, and realized that the Van Gogh paintings are nice enough to put in the kitchen; which unfortunately is a bar too high for 99% of existing paintings in the world. For some reasons, many painters do not try to make beautiful things, or they are incapable.
Luxury that's worthless if you are chased by heat and thirst
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> Pictures in a book or on web pages do not do justice to how vibrant the pictures are in real life This is true and big. The paintings are nice on books and screens but are stunning in real life. There is a lot of nuance in the colours that pictures don't replicate. Same happens to Vermeer landscapes. His "View of Delft" is just nice on screen but almost magical when seen in real.
HN might be the best place to ask. What lights do galleries use? They make the paintings pop.
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> Pictures in a book or on web pages do not do justice to how vibrant the pictures are in real life This is true and big. The paintings are nice on books and screens but are stunning in real life. There is a lot of nuance in the colours that pictures don't replicate. Same happens to Vermeer landscapes. His "View of Delft" is just nice on screen but almost magical when seen in real.
HN might be the best place to ask. What lights do galleries use? They make the paintings pop.
The focus of the light is key — by lighting the painting and not lighting the walls around it, that makes it pop a lot more than typically area lighting common in residential applications. Color temperature is also very important. Finally, in my case; my walls are painted a dark, lead-pipe grey so it makes the paintings really jump.
The brand of my lights is Wac Lighting controlled by Lutron dimmers in case you are interested. Color balanced LED. LED used to be inferior for galleries, but the tech has gotten very good (added benefit of running a lot cooler than the old halogen.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN might be the best place to ask. What lights do galleries use? They make the paintings pop.
My house is essentially an art gallery — I had a museum lighting expert do all of the lighting installs and the key thing is going to be the width of the light (correctly focusing the light so it doesn’t spill outside of the painting much,) then color temperature. The focus of the light is key — by lighting the painting and not lighting the walls around it, that makes it pop a lot more than typically area lighting co…
Not very impressive at the painfully low resolution you download the images at. You can zoom in for a larger view, but the website does all it can to prevent users from actually downloading the high resolution image. Pathetic for a museum.
You can get URLs to the high resolution images using the network inspector. E.g. https://iiif.micr.io/TZCqF/full/1800,/0/default.webp
One of the benefits of this is that you can get access to a metadata file that lets you know technical information about the image: It's at https://iiif.micr.io/TZCqF/info.json.
I went to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam because I was there and it was on the bucket list. Pictures in a book or on web pages do not do justice to how vibrant the pictures are in real life. Plus, in the days before additional security was required, you could go right up to them (within reason) and check them out up close. They look like they were painted yesterday. Not everyone likes his work but I'm a fan.
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My house is essentially an art gallery — I had a museum lighting expert do all of the lighting installs and the key thing is going to be the width of the light (correctly focusing the light so it doesn’t spill outside of the painting much,) then color temperature. The focus of the light is key — by lighting the painting and not lighting the walls around it, that makes it pop a lot more than typically area lighting co…
Any recommendations on how to find the correct color temperature? Should it maybe be matched with the actual painting (how?) or dialed in to fit the rest of the room (how)?
I wouldn’t overthink it.. just as long as you stay out of the 4500K+ range (approaching daylight,) things will look great. The warmth of the 3600K range is great — anything less than that and the warmth of the light starts to affect color rendition, anything more and the light gets bluer and harsher.
Your eyes can be the guide. But having correctly focused light at the correct intensity (not too bright for instance) is key. There are use cases for daylight balance — if you are in a mixed light situation such as a windowed or skylight with abondant sunlight, you might consider going a little cooler on the color temperature — but again, use your eyes.
It can be really fun messing with lighting and art! Good luck.