Red hair in Paintings: Orange-red towards green

Different amounts of green take the glow effect of orange down.
It kind of neutralize the importance of the strong warm color in the painting.
I go to the conclusion that green actually is a stronger eye catcher than orange.
We have this complement color reaction in our eyes
and staring at a strong orange spot will make an after picture of grey or grey green,
when you then look upon a white surface.
When painting we can use this knowledge and make our glow effect stronger by
using the complement color effects, when we chose our color harmony.
As you see.... in some of the pictures shown here,artists use a small amount of yellow to
make eye catch points so they energize the perhaps too stiff or boring composition.

William Glackens
American 1870-1938
This picture was painted 1920

Collette W Davis

Andrey Remnev

Amadeo Modigliani

Gunnar Zilo

Gunnar Zilo is one of those artists in Scandinavia ,

who haven't gotten enough attention in Art History.

A wonderful colorist that I find more interesting than Wilhelm Lundstøm in Denmark

Bertalan de Karlovszky

Seems to be the sketch for this painting

Bertold Karlovsky

Here he decided to cool down the color range

I find the sketch more interesting though

James Kerr Lawson

May Smith

Ivan Olinsky
Painted 1915

Hans Purrman

Blue and ocher gives the image of olive green which then weigh up the red hairs dominance.
He even added some turquoise and a small eye in the sleeve to move the view down.

Raimundo De Madrazo Y Garetta

Lillie Watts Langtry

Here there are so much green that the hair color get a very small importance.

De Scevola

Some artist use an other artist's color harmony

and make a new picture but with the exact same colors

Others get there by chance.

Hard to know which was the reason for this picture of Botero

who is known for using earlier portraits to inspire.

Fernando Botero

Thomas Cooper Gotch
Halleluja

Lucian Vicktor Guirand de Scavola

James Jacquez Jospeh Tissot
Portraits of Princesse De Broglie

And to show a Russian -German woman,
who makes something she calls Portrait Metamorphose
Where she takes commissions and switch the faces of an old portrait with
a photo of her clients and work on it in Photoshop I guess and
then the whole thing is printed on a canvas to look like a painting.
In this days everything is possible!
If you can't afford a real portrait an alternative could be this.
Nb Add some flowers if the decolletage is too low!

Inessa E. Imatchinski

http://en.portrait-metamorphose.eu/your_portrait.html
For those who find this interesting.

Leon Wyczolkowsky
Polish artist 1852-1936
Irena Solska

Look what a difference in the orange hairs glow when the background is blue!
Wyczolkowsky deliberately shows how dominant the hair can be
when the colors bring each other to radiate the most.