Do You See What I See?

My color theory teacher and I were both looking out the window gazing at the tree limbs?  It was the first time that I experienced the idea of Color Seeing, which was originally introduced by Hawthorne at the “Cape Cod School of Art”.  Hawthorne was a contemporary of Monet and took his color seeing a step further.  As my teacher and I were both looking at the same tree, he discovered a bluish note, but I thought it was more reddish.  He said he noticed that I tended to see colors much warmer then him. 

Does each person see color differently?  Could this be a result of acuity, age or even drugs?  I heard that Van Gogh had lead poisoning, which caused him to see halos around objects, as well as the digitalis that he took for Epilepsy caused a yellow aura and yellow spots in his vision.  Could this be a result of his “Yellow Period”?

Did Renoir’s myopic vision in his later years cause him to produce brighter colors, primarily reds and oranges, with thicker and sketchier strokes? 

Monet’s cataracts caused yellowing and darkening of the lense of his eye, thus influenced his painting to be muddied and blurred.  There was an interesting paper written by Michael F. Marmor, MD, Stanford University Medical Center, Department of Ophthalmology, “Ophthalmology and Art: Simulation of Monet’s Cataracts and Degas’ Retinal Disease”, that gives you the visuals of what he suspects were the recreated vision of both these artists.

Food for thought, that we as artists are not only affected by style preference, and eye hand coordination, but extremely affected by our vision and how we see the world. 

*This is my twenty-fifth painting of my paint 52 challenge, measures 30″ X 30″ Atelier Acrylic and Oil on Museum wrapped canvas (no need for framing), price $2250 SOLD.  Thank you so much for following my journey.