Yellow is like, wow

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is staging an exhibition on Van Gogh’s use of yellow that you can also tour online.

Cheerful yellow. The yellow of the sun, lemons, bananas, buses, cabs, caution lights, and egg yolks. The yellow of the yellow-bellied. Yellow journalism. Yellow teeth. The yellow peril. The yellow of jaundice and bile.

Sunflower yellow.

Here’s how the artist Olafur Eliasson, a contributor to the exhibition, sees yellow:

I think yellow has to do with seeing more than we normally think we are seeing. It is almost like having a vision, seeing something that is on the other side of the horizon of what we can see. Which is also prominent in the works of Van Gogh and his usage of yellow.

Yellow helps us acknowledge that it is dangerous to take reality for granted. That real is not static, but relative and changeable. Yellow has this incredible history of somehow seeming to offer more, what you otherwise normally cannot see. And I like that, I believe in it.’

Or more simply:

Yellow is like, wow.