Lectures at the MFA - Van Gogh: “How did he make those colors?”

Like most artists of his time, Van Gogh used tubes of paint from color makers. In his colorful paintings from his time in Arles, he used around a dozen different pigments, by themselves or in many mixtures. One newly invented pigment he began to use faded in light, which has caused dramatic color shifts in some of his paintings. Learn more about what materials he used, and discover how we’re able to determine what they were. Richard Newman, head of Scientific Research, Conservation, and Collections Management Wednesday, June 4, 2025