Getty Reverse-Engineers a van Gogh
Not Van Gogh's Irises : a digital impression of how its colors might have looked originally. Factum Foundation, 2024 The colors of paintings shift over time. It is therefore possible to use our new digital toys to reconstruct the original appearance of paintings. Until recently, museums have often distanced themselves from such efforts because (a) nobody wants to advertise that beloved artworks are not exactly what the artist intended; and (b) the digital reconstructions just weren't that convincing. If the guesstimated colors are even a little off, it undermines the premise. The Getty Center Museum is showing one of its star paintings alongside a digital reconstruction in "Ultra-Violet: New Light on Van Gogh's Irises" (through Jan. 19, 2025). The original: Vincent Van Gogh, Irises , 1889. Getty Museum The chemical industry of Van Gogh's time promoted new synthetic pigments, inexpensive and available as oil colors in handy roll-up tubes. Van Gogh, who never
