Estimation of the dichromatic type in possible colourblind pictorial artists.

It is a problem to judge whether a colour blind pictorial artist paints limited by his limited defective
colour scheme or if he paints in a determined way.
However there are several cues and characteristics in the paintings unfolding that the painter might
be colour blind, even though the painter has not passed a professsionel colour vision examination.
The dilemma has previously been treated by Lanthony and Marmor and in Oftalmolog Dec.2011
by the author, and in june 2015, where the so callled ‘value painting’ is descibed as a sign of
colour blindness, i.e.: painting with emphasis on the brightness of the colour, which is referred as
an input for the understanding of the colourblind way of painting and a sign of probable colour
blindness

To decide if a red/green colour blind is a protanope or deuteranope (or a corresponding weakness/anomia), it

is actual with an examination of the subject’s neutralpoint or a Rayleigh/Nagel Anomaloscope test.
The investigation concerns four deceased presumably colourblind painters and and one who has passed an
examination (by the author).
Vilhelm Hammershøi, Ferdinand Léger, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso and Troels Trier.
They all paint valuepainting.

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Neutralpoint-testing.

Normal persons are trichromates and have for this reason no neutralpoint, but red/green colur blind persons
are dichromates and have an area between the blue and yellow sensititity curves, where the sensation is
neutral, white or gray. See the figure and also the CIE colour diagrams for protanopes and deuteranopes
where the ‘gray lines’ are drawn. All the lines illustrates the colours, which can be confused by the colour
blind. The gray line illustrates the colours which seems gray/white for the dichromate.

The CIE diagrams shows which colours are equal for the protanope,left and deuteranope,right.

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The neutral grayline runs from cyan aboy 495nm to red about 650nm in protanpia and from green about
505nm to extraspectral magentared in deuteranopia.
There are two neutralpoints where the gray line crosses the outer limit of the CIE diagram.
The neutralpoint testing determines whether the first neutralpoint of the colourblind lies in the blue-green
area at 495 nm for the protanope or in the green area at 500-505 nm for the deuteranope.
American Optical’s (AO) HRR (Hardy Rand Rittler) is designed as a semiquantitative pseudoisochromatic
test to solve this purpose.

Testing for the Second Neutralpoint by HRR, Ishihara for school children and preschool children.

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The second neutralpoint can also be tested in a pseudoisochromatic way. The symbols are red which is
compared with the extraspectral colour magenta on a background of various grays.
HRR is actual again, but also a couple of the last symbols in the Ishihara test. Some of these can also be used
for illitteral people. The red symbols cannot be seen, but the magenta symbols can, in Protanopes. In
deuteranopia the reverse is true, the red symbols can be seen and the magenta cannot be seen.
There are not so many examples of colour confusions among the pictorial artists.
Vilhelm Hammershøi has some examples of possible turquoise/gray confusion. He paints the
verdigris of some the copper roofs gray as if it roof s were made of zinc. This is the case of
Kronborg set fra Kommandantens Tårn’ ( ‘Kronborg Castle’ at Elsinore seen from the Tower of the
Commandant’), Frederiksborg Castle and the steeple of Sct. Petri Church, Copenhagen.
These findings might indicate that Hammershøi was protanope, and we will find the same result
later in the Nagel test.
Fernand Léger painted in typical valuepainting manner. His typical Yellow is orange yellow which
might indicate deuteranopia, the most common form of colour blindness.
The deceased Lund professor Sven Larsson describes in his book from 1965 ‘Kontnärens Öga’
(The Eye of the Artist), a test of his colourblind son. He painted colours of a detail of a picture of

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Léger, which was memorized and another with the image in front of him. It was at bit interesting,
that the colours remembered were quite correct and the actually seen colours demonstrated, that
the green leaves were colourconfused with gray. This might indicate, that Sven Larsson’s son in
the this test is deuteranope. (There is no mention from Larsson, who was not totally colour-
updated, because he mentions that, the so-called ‘green blind’, deuteranopes, sees the yellow-red
part of the spectrum as different shades of green, as you may, if you adheres to the trichromatic
colour theory.

Léger paints valuepainting, ie: according to lightness, which gives a flat impression. As a probable
deuteranope he cannot otherwise discriminate the colours in the warm end of the spectrum.
Légers paintings in the fifties, were in the Russian social-realistic tradition with monumental
compositions of the common man.

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Anomaloscope test

In the anomaloscope test at right you examine how much red and green light a subject requires to
match a yellow (575 nm) reference-colour. At left NCS chart you can notice, that olive is a dark
yellow. (NCS:Natural Colour System)

The multiartist Troels Trier likes orange yellow

And blue as a real deuteranope. He has an art education in graphics and performed also in music,
crazy comics, and film

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This is of course not possible in a deceased test subject, but in this case of a painter you can
examine has typical yellow, it has been possible to use such a modern ‘anomaloscope test’ on a
PC for many years.
So it would be natural to carry out small ‘anomaloscope’ experiments on a PC on quality digital
pictures of characteristic paintings of the concerned painters. In most cases it has been possible to
obtain the pictures from the museums which secures the white light illumination condition and
controlled colour registration, and this part has become much easier and probably also better than
the analog technology.
The typical yellow of the artist is found in as many paintings as far as possible and on multiple
images.
In an image editing programme (for example Adobe Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Gimp) of excellent
quality, the RGB values can be read in a single point. and you get a Rayleigh Quotient Q = R / G.
The monitor should be of good quality, but not nescesarily extreme. In this investigation a 23’’ HP
pavillon backlit screen and a fine colour span, (gamut sRGB) was used. See the Mondrian
example.
Concerning inaccuracies, it is helpful, that par example brightness differences will affect the
quotient less because it will affect R and G in the same direction.

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8
An overview of the findings can be seen in the table.
As it might be expected, only one protanope was found. The others were deuteranope.
Picasso’s yellow is often a warm orange yellow, just like Léger’s, Mondrian’s and Troels Trier’s.
As mentioned before Troels Trier has been examined: by the author with HRR, Farnsworth - F15,
Ishihara, and was found to be severe deuteranope.
In the article in Danish about valuepainting as a sign of colourblindness it is stressed, that Picasso
fulfils, the manners of colourblind painters. The most important is the blue/yellow palette. Thus
Picasso has a ‘Blue period’ in which yellow and olive also dominated, and he also a ‘rose period’.
But the overall impression is rather that the rose in that period is an orange yellow, which is the
yellow for the deuteranope, and in this way our blindness suspicion is well applied.
Hammershøi seems to be protanope and with this knowledge, you can also see, that his olive
(dark yellow), often used as background, is to the green side, and not brownish to the red side.
There has been a little doubt about Leger’s colour blindness. For this reason it is appropriate to
provide a correction of the electrophysologist’s Michael Marmor remark, that Sven Larsson in his
‘Kunsnärens Öga’ does not believe, that Léger was colourblind after a conversation he had with
madame Léger after the death of his spouse.
Marmor has obviously not translated from Swedish, Larsson report and Larsson thought too little
about it. He writes in my translation:
“Léger’s widow has told me, that she could not believe, that her husband had been colourblind.
She had been together with him for 32 years, and been his pupil. He often corrected her colours
and she meant, that she would have noticed, if he had been defective in colour vision”.
Madame Léger also told:” He had instructed 5.000 pupils, and she has not seen colour vision
defects in neither the teachers nor the pupils.
This statement cannot be true, that here was no colourblinds among 5.000 people.
If we only assume, that half of the students were men, there will be 8% of 2.500 and 0,5 % of the
women.This corresponds to about 200 men and 12-13 women must have been colour blind, as
nothing indicates, that visual artists differ in this respect from the general population. Larsson
himself mentions that he studied a small number of art students and found no difference between
them and other people.
In this speciel case, the political standpoint of madame Léger is important for understanding the
excessive loyalty to the dead husband, and this is the reason for the following. Madame Léger was
born in Belarus, White Russia near Vitebsk (where Chagall established an art school). She had a
brief painting instruction in Smolensk, Belararus, in a study circle, where also the later well
established Majevski participated.

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Madame Léger was not only an active member of the French Communist Party, she was also a
Stalinist, and made a Stalin portrait as late as 1972, when she received one of the highest honours
in Sovietrussia, ‘The Red Banner Order of Labour’.
Now, as well as earlier, the russian access to the truth is often relative.
Fernand Léger stayed in the United States during WWII, and joined the French Communist party
upon his return to France.
In his paintings, we can see a change of his motives to more working people and the common
man, but also holiday scenes and athletic, strong human bodies, all in the Russian social-realistic
style, where the human figures become distinct outlined. The parole was at that time among many
artists: Depiction of the people and for the people.
Wikipedia describes that his attitude to communism was a humanistic nature - this probably means
idealistic. However, the soviet invasion in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968 made no
change in the Léger-couples connection to the party.

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Nadia Khodosevitc Léger : Le Pionaire et Staline 1953, Musée d’Art à Lodź.

This point is also true for the parlourcommunist and billionaire Pablo Picasso, now we are dealing
with the subject. Picasso got ‘The Peace Prize of Stalin’ in 1950, made a drawing of Stalin in 1953
and received the Lenin peace Price in 1962, which disturbs his possibility for being descent, so
USSR made him a stamp at his death in 1973.
Also Léger’s visit to Finland in 1953, in connection with costume drawing to a theatre in Stockholm,
was not very successful, even after meeting with the famous architect Alvar Aalto; maybe due to
fact that the Finns were still paying wartime compensation to Russia after the defeat in the Finnish-
Russian war.
As a final remark it is interesting to note that important of the founders of cubism may have used
the regular geometrical forms to hide their possible colour handicap, Picasso, Léger and Mondrian.
Picasso and Léger had also some attraction to poster and advertisement designs. Colour mixing
was mot their main force.

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Picasso, George Bauquier( Légers assistant at his Academy and Nadias later Husband),Léger and
Nadia Léger. At Légers farm in Normandy. Pinterest.

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Picasso : Figures au Bord de la Mer 1931, Musée Picosso Barcelona

Picsso ; Masacre en Coréa 1951, Musée Picasso Paris, Wikipedia

The painting looks like a black/blue and white drawing which is colorated. Red left and Green right.
In between a dirty mixing. The ‘post-coloring’ is seen in many Picasso pictures and is indeed a
common Picasso method. As seen also in the Picasso exhibition at ARKEN, near Copenhagen 10
years ago,

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 Lene Berg
'Stalin by Picasso or Portrait of Woman with Moustache', 2008
From the Picasso exhibition Malmoe, Sweden 2018

Engine Green 1875 Nat.Railway Mus. Wikipedia

The locomotive designer William Stroudley (1833-89) made the ‘Terrier’ barking engine for the
LB&S rail road (London, Brighton & Southern Coastal. He was R/B colourblind and called
it :‘Engine Green’. The colour pipette says R255, G180, Raileigh Q=1,42 and accordinly, Stroudley
might have been Deuteranope, if the new owner has painted the engine as Stroudley did. .

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