Colorists.

American Abstract Expressionist whose Burst paintings hung a sun-disk of red over a tangle of black on a warm cream ground.

"Gottlieb staged colour as cosmology — a red disk floating above a black tangle on a cream sky, the painting a creation myth in three notes."

Canadian-American minimalist whose pencil-ruled grids on pale washes hold dove grey, peach, and a meditative quiet.

"When I think of art, I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye, it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection."

German Renaissance printmaker and painter whose watercolours and engravings catalogued nature in patient ochre, green, and ink.

"Dürer treated colour with a draftsman's discipline — ochre and verdigris laid over silverpoint, every leaf and feather measured before it was tinted."

Anglo-French Impressionist whose Seine snowscenes balanced lavender, dove grey, and a low yellow sun.

"Sisley kept Impressionism in winter — lavender, dove grey, and the lowest pale yellow doing the work of an entire sky."

Czech Art Nouveau master whose theatre posters wrapped Sarah Bernhardt in pastel halo, cream, and dusty rose.

"Mucha drew haloes and let pastel halo, cream, and dusty rose do the rest — Art Nouveau as a colour scheme as much as a line."

American painter whose dignified portraits sit in a signature grisaille skin against soft mint, butter yellow, and a cool pastel ground.

"Sherald paints skin in grisaille and sets her sitters on mint and butter yellow — the world a quiet pastel so the figure can hold the room."

French Fauvist whose Collioure landscapes set vermillion roofs against turquoise sea with no transition at all.

"Derain pushed colour past plausibility — vermillion roofs and turquoise sea touching with no apology, no shadow in between."

American Pop Art icon whose silkscreens of Marilyn, soup cans, and electric chairs ran in screen-print pink, lime, and electric blue.

"I think everybody should like everybody. And colour is the easiest way to make that happen on a Tuesday afternoon."

British-Indian sculptor whose pigment-coated voids and mirrored surfaces deploy ultramarine, vermilion, and the famously light-eating Vantablack.

"Kapoor uses colour as a void — vermilion and ultramarine dropped onto a surface until it stops being a surface and becomes a hole."

German-American Bauhaus weaver whose textiles balanced ochre, indigo, and cream into rigorous, gridded chords.

"Anni Albers worked colour at the loom — ochre against indigo, the grid built thread by thread until colour and structure are the same fact."

German painter whose vast surfaces of burnt earth, ash, straw, and lead read like landscapes that survived something.

"Kiefer treats colour as material — burnt earth, lead, straw, and ash troweled across surfaces that look excavated rather than painted."

Italian Baroque painter whose Judiths and biblical heroines blaze in saturated gold yellow, blood red, and deep velvet shadow.

"Gentileschi's heroines stand in a single shaft of light — gold drapery and blood red set so hard against black that every gesture reads like a verdict."

American Photorealist whose vanitas still lifes mirrored airbrushed pastries, hot pink lipsticks, and varnished fruit.

"Flack airbrushed the vanitas — hot pink lipstick and varnished fruit pushed to a sheen that made the symbolism harder, not softer, to take seriously."

American Abstract Expressionist whose zip paintings sliced fields of cadmium red, ultramarine, and yellow with a single vertical line.

"Newman used colour as a wall — vast cadmium red split by one zip, the eye held to its place by sheer scale."

Brazilian painter whose carnival mandalas layer hot pink, lime, tangerine, and chocolate brown like cake decoration.

"Milhazes layers colour as if for a parade — hot pink and lime on tangerine on chocolate brown, every mandala a piece of Rio set to rotate."

French Impressionist whose intimate domestic scenes shimmer in pearl white, dusty rose, and the palest leaf green.

"Morisot worked at the edge of dissolving paint — pearl, rose, and pale green held just long enough to read as a mother, a child, a window."

British Op Art pioneer whose black-and-white stripes and curves vibrate against the retina, joined later by emerald and rose accents.

"The eye can travel over the surface in a way parallel to the way it moves over nature. The colours and the rhythms it finds are real events."

Danish-French Impressionist whose orchards and rooftops broke green and violet into dotted, atmospheric weather.

"Pissarro built whole villages out of small touches — violet roofs, lavender shadow, and a hundred greens for one orchard."

Italian Baroque revolutionary whose chiaroscuro pulled saints and street thugs out of total darkness with a single shaft of light.

"For Caravaggio colour was always staged against black — ivory flesh, deep wine red, and a glaze of ochre rising out of shadow as if lit by a single candle."

Italian architect whose Venetian interventions paired patinated bronze, concrete, and Murano glass with surgical light.

"I want to see things, that's all I really trust. Colour is a thing you see; it has nothing to do with theory."

German Romantic whose wanderers stood before fog seas and moonlit ruins in slate blue, frost grey, and one pinprick of warm lamp.

"Friedrich's colour is weather — slate sky, frost pine, and the cool back of a figure who is the only witness."

British painter whose churning canvases dissolve flesh, fruit, and beasts into magenta, ochre, and a green that always smells of garden.

"Brown lets paint behave like a crowd — magenta and ochre and garden green pushing each other across the surface until something figural appears almost against its will."

American Photorealist whose mosaic portraits built a face out of thousands of small marks in pink, lime, and indigo.

"Close built the face one mark at a time — pink, lime, and indigo dots that resolve into a portrait only when you step back."

Swedish-American Pop sculptor whose giant hamburgers and clothespins ran in mustard, ketchup, and bun beige.

"Oldenburg painted the diner — mustard, ketchup, and bun beige stretched over canvas and vinyl until everyday objects became monuments."

French impressionist who painted the same haystacks, the same lily pond, again and again, chasing light's temperature.

"Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment."