Master Painting BreakdownGeorge Henry, River Landscape By Moonlight, 1887

Here is the painting in grayscale.

This painting demonstrates a compressed range of dark values plus light accents, being the moon, its reflection and the streetlights.

Notice how saturated all the colors appear, despite the generally dark value range of the painting. This is because blues and purples are naturally more saturated around the lower value range. Yellow on the other hand is a naturally lighter. You would not be able to use a dark yellow which also has a high saturation.

In terms of color, Henry used a combination of blues, oranges and purples. This would be close to a split-complementary color scheme.

There is a sharp contrast between the vivid orange and the blues and purples. The blues and purples appear to be desaturated slightly so that they do not compete for attention with the vivid oranges.

Here is a 2-value notan of the painting. It is a simple but powerful design.

Here is a 4-value notan. This notan shows a slight gradation in value from the top of the painting to the bottom.

Here is a close-up of the focal point in the painting. Take note of how little detail is actually used. Henry illustrated the general shapes and colors, but he lets our minds fill in the rest of the details.

If we place a 2 by 2 grid over the painting, notice where the focal point is. Also notice how each segment is unique in some way.

Key Takeaways

● Compressed darks plus small bursts of color and light can produce stunning results.

● A notan design does not need to be complex to be effective. Sometimes less is more.

● The mind is a powerful thing. If you can paint the general shapes, values and colors then the mind will make up the rest of the detail.