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Color Gradation
In Monet’s painting of the Thames he has foregone detail in favour of an exploration of the light and shadow that play on the subject.
He has used shimmering color gradations brought about by layering fractured areas of different colors of a similar tone. These juxtaposed colors visually mix to form subtle, animated greys, drifting from warm to cool throughout the painting.
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![Claude Monet [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4897a5_7484c7df2b194c9bb75adf3566e93df2~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_694,h_499,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/4897a5_7484c7df2b194c9bb75adf3566e93df2~mv2.jpg)
Claude Monet (1840-1926) “Thames – Charring Cross” (1903)
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The most perfect example of natural color gradation is a rainbow. A seamless gradation from ultraviolet through all the colors to infared. When twisted into a circle so the cool red meets up with the warm violet we have a model for the color wheel most of our color theories are based on.
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Rainbow
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