FS Colour Series: English Rose inspired by Titian’s Passionate Crimson

Jonas Wood finds beauty in the mundane, as crowded spaces spill over with junk, shelves are packed with potted plants and clashing prints compete for our attention. All this bristling energy is surrounded by soft grey light, allowing steely silence to descend upon his scenes, a nod, perhaps towards our need for stillness amidst the frenetic…

MARIGOLD linen’s rich, ochre yellow is flush with warm radiance, like a late summer sunset. American artist Keith Haring saw sunny optimism and the golden glow of human spirit in this colour, bleeding it into his freewheeling universe of jumping people, barking dogs and graphic slogans. Combining eye wateringly bright colours with cartoonish characters and…

Hovering somewhere between green, blue and soft grey, MEADOW linen has a mysterious ambiguity, like misty fog gathering over a salty sea. In French Impressionist Claude Monet’s hand this colour was transformed into flickering patches of cold, airy morning light or a smoggy, enveloping haze. The mutable, changeable nature of this colour reflected Monet’s fascination with…

RIM linen’s tawny, warm grey features heavily in French Cubist Georges Braque’s palette, as patches of fawn light are cast across dimly lit scenes, creating stillness and tranquillity. Though his early paintings were awash with Fauvist colour, it was Braque’s later, steely grey canvases that defined him as a true pioneer of early abstraction, one…

Moody, sombre and filled with suspense, the silvery blue tone in REED linen was entrancing for British painter Walter Richard Sickert, allowing him to convey scenes lit by a soft, diffused light. From the murky waters and metallic skies of Venice to delicate, intimate interiors, Sickert conveyed a spectrum of subjects with this colour throughout…