About the Transience of Colours

We have already spoken about the beauty of colours. Let us now talk about their transience. Depending on the environmental conditions to which a work of art is exposed and which pigments form the basis of its colours, it can change considerably. Perhaps the most famous example is Rembrandt's so-called "Night Watch", which never was and never should be a night watch. The actual title is "Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banning Cocq". It was not called a "Night Watch" until two and a half centuries after it was painted - at a time when the picture had already darkened so much that in some areas of the picture, one could only recognise shadows. It was only in 1975, after the last major restoration, that it almost regained its original colour appearance.

However, colours not only darken, but they also change. A famous example of this excited the art world some time ago and made the front pages of the major newspapers: Van Gogh's "Bedroom in Arles". The picture shows the room with blue walls, even though the artist repeatedly spoke of his purple walls in his letters. Here it was not the dust of the centuries but the effect of UV light that turned the original colour into a pale blue - and gradually shifted van Gogh's famous yellow into green. So major tasks are ahead for conservators, and lighting in museums will also become an even more pressing issue.

Fortunately, this problem does not arise for high-quality ars mundi reproductions. Here, modern colours are used that remain colour-stable over long periods of time.