Andy Warhol made this painting of Marilyn Monroe using a photograph as a stencil for silk screening and used ink to fill it. This means it uses subtractive color mixing. It has very high aesthetic energy because it is almost entirely bright, highly saturated, contrast of hues, lightly accented with black, and a variety of contrast concepts.
The picture is showing us the high intensity of Marilyn Monroe’s star quality. Our attention is drawn to her faces because those are the only places where active and passive colors create details and depth through many contrast concepts. The brightness of the backgrounds shows us that she stands out against any form of attention-seeking glamour. The mood is upbeat and fun. It could even be overwhelming. Her persona and the height of her popularity is summarized efficiently.
It has high contrast not only because the face is accented with a light and dark contrast to provide contour to her face, but also between backgrounds because of the complement contrast since they are next to their complement backgrounds to get that hologram effect. The first column’s background has an analogues relationship because it is blue, red, and purple. Split relationship exists in the second column because it is orange, green, and pink. There is a triad relationship between backgrounds of the third column because it is blue, pink, and yellow. Primary, secondary, and tertiary colors appear. The colors have medium value since it is not very dark or light. Generally warm colors are used.
The dominant colors are the backgrounds and they are highly saturated and are simultaneously contrasted to each other. The subdominant colors are her tinted, light valued faces and her hair, which show saturation contrast. Accents appear in the form of shade on the contours of her face, hair, and lips to stand out from the saturated background. This draws our attention to her face and makes it look delicate. What advances is her face and the make up. The face contours, sides of her lips, and curls in her hair are passive. It tells us that she stands apart in anything because she has that star quality. There is no detail in the backgrounds.
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