The paintings

Each palette is drawn from one or more works by Candido Portinari (1903–1962). Eight are in the collection of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP); Guerra and Paz are the two panels he painted for the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Click an image or title to open the work’s page.

The palettes are an interpretation of each work’s dominant tones, not a measurement of it. The exceptions are terra_roxa and roxa_terra, whose colors were sampled from the MASP image of Coffee Agricultural Worker: the purples of the worker’s shirt, the pale greens of the coffee rows and hills, and the near-black soil at his feet. Images are shown from the MASP collection site and remain under copyright.

cafe

Qualitative · 6 colors · colorblind-friendly

Warm coffee-plantation tones: brick, ochre and cream, with a blue counterpoint.

Coffee Agricultural Worker, 1934
MASP, São Paulo · MASP.00519

Saint Francis, 1941
MASP, São Paulo · MASP.00321

retirantes

Diverging · 8 colors · colorblind-friendly

Cool slate to warm earth through cream: the dusty tones of the Migrant series and the Felippe d’Oliveira bust.

Northeastern Migrants, from the Migrant Series, 1944
MASP, São Paulo · MASP.00324

Dead Child, from the Migrant Series, 1944
MASP, São Paulo · MASP.00326

Bust of the Poet Felippe Daudt d’Oliveira, from the Portraits Series, 1933
MASP, São Paulo · MASP.00568

inah

Diverging · 5 colors · first 4 colorblind-safe

Dusk blue and sage to blush and ochre, through cream.

Portrait of Ináh Prudente de Moraes, from the Portraits Series, 1936
MASP, São Paulo · MASP.01295

sofia

Diverging · 5 colors · first 3 colorblind-safe

Deep green and teal to gold and rose, through cream.

Portrait of Sofia Cantalupo, 1936
MASP, São Paulo · MASP.01643

terra_roxa

Diverging · 9 colors · colorblind-friendly

Plum and mauve to pale coffee greens through sage off-white.

Coffee Agricultural Worker, 1934
MASP, São Paulo · MASP.00519

guerra

Diverging · 9 colors · colorblind-friendly

A symphony in blue, from deep violet-indigo to pale citrine, against an orange, rose and red counterpoint.

View the panel at Google Arts & Culture →

Guerra (War), 1952–1956
United Nations Headquarters, New York

paz

Qualitative · 8 colors · first 4 colorblind-safe

Golden yellows of a ‘golden age’, with ochre, orange, rose, olive and sky blue.

View the panel at Google Arts & Culture →

Paz (Peace), 1952–1956
United Nations Headquarters, New York

Sequential palettes

guerra_azul and paz_ouro are taken from the panels above: the blue scale of Guerra and the earth-to-gold run of Paz, ordered from dark to light. roxa_terra is the sequential companion to terra_roxa: it rises from the near-black soil of Coffee Agricultural Worker through the plums of the worker’s shirt to the pale citrine of Guerra, the lightest color of guerra_azul.

guerra_azul

paz_ouro

roxa_terra