After spending a chilly day walking around Paris, in particular near the Louvre, I did this painting in the evening relying purely on my memory and my impressions of a scene just north of le Louve. On the left lies a famous cafe, while in the middle/background is the Louvre itself, while on the right is another cafe with two people (red and green) seen in the window being served by a fairly rude waiter. Ghostly figures walk around the cobblestone street. I was inspired by Van Gogh's painting of a cafe at night-he created a warm interior lighting in a cold starry-sky night- the feeling of which which I tried to replicate here. This painting is a sort of 'alternate view', in that I combined surrealism (dreamlike) and fauvism (bright primary complements) with traditional landscape.
In most of my paintings I use complementary colour schemes throughout the work. The basic complementary colours are red/green, blue/orange, and yellow/purple. In this painting there are several examples. The sign of the cafe on the right has a red background, with a green part of the wall just to the side. The sidewalk below is orange (suggesting light from the cafe) and fades to blue. Orange and blue are also used in the entrance to the Louvre. The scene in the cafe to the left uses yellow lighting, with dark purple shadows. Also, most of the brick work has similar complements , although it is subtle...the greys are all tinted towards one colour or another. In this way, even the grey bricks are vibrant and exciting to the eye.
Le Louvre, abstract memory, watercolour 7.5 x 11" cold press 2009 (No. 1246)
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