What I noticed: In each version, my focus is drawn to completely different locations.
- In The Harvest, I immediately look to the farmer in the newer version.
- In Starry Night, I immediately look to the church in the new version, instead of the moon.
- Likewise, in The Road Menders and The Sower I look at the people more, and the trees and sun less.
- In the Cafe Terrace at Night, I immediately look to the server in the new version, instead of the yellow lighted wall in the original.
I noticed I measure the person and their posture much more readily. I can now, in my mind, recall the posture of most of these people: the server is erect, the sower is slightly bent and tired, the farmer in the harvest is steadily working, if slightly hurriedly, and in The Road Menders the two nun-looking characters in the back are somewhat tired as if on a weekend.
What I learned from this isn't "van Gogh had a color deficiency," but the way in which color can affect the mood of a painting in really subtle ways I hadn't considered.
Maybe I am a little color blind and never knew it- because while I can see a difference between the two, it's not all that striking- the only difference I see is that oranges become yellows and deep blues become a little lighter. Am I the only one?
Something to keep in mind: the gamut of your LCD is a pretty crude mapping of the actual paint colors.
In the best case, on a wide gamut panel, these are very rude approximations of what you might see under the unnatural lighting experienced by the author. It should not be taken as any kind of diagnostic.
If you have e.g. a 6 bit TN panel, all of these are going to look very similar, before anomalous vision is even involved.
- In The Harvest, I immediately look to the farmer in the newer version.
- In Starry Night, I immediately look to the church in the new version, instead of the moon.
- Likewise, in The Road Menders and The Sower I look at the people more, and the trees and sun less.
- In the Cafe Terrace at Night, I immediately look to the server in the new version, instead of the yellow lighted wall in the original.
I noticed I measure the person and their posture much more readily. I can now, in my mind, recall the posture of most of these people: the server is erect, the sower is slightly bent and tired, the farmer in the harvest is steadily working, if slightly hurriedly, and in The Road Menders the two nun-looking characters in the back are somewhat tired as if on a weekend.
What I learned from this isn't "van Gogh had a color deficiency," but the way in which color can affect the mood of a painting in really subtle ways I hadn't considered.
Cool.