Van GoghColor Palette
The Van Gogh color palette is a mineral palette of chrome yellow (#E8B33A), cobalt blue (#1F3A93), and the mixed violets and greens that sit between them. It comes from the Arles and Saint-Rémy paintings — the Sunflowers, The Bedroom, Irises, Almond Blossom, and The Starry Night — where Van Gogh used complementary pairs rather than black for shadow. This page gives ten colors with hex codes, the paintings and pigments behind each, application guidance, and the colors that break the system.
Signature
Signature Colors
Chrome yellow and cobalt blue are the two poles of the Arles and Saint-Rémy paintings. Van Gogh used them as complements rather than as decoration: the yellow makes the blue look deeper, and the blue keeps the yellow from turning to brass. Both colors were painted thickly and often straight from the tube, so the hex values here describe the color at full strength, before the canvas, the brush marks, and the varnish soften it.
Chrome Yellow
#E8B33A
Sunflowers, wheat, sunlight accentsThe saturated yellow of the Sunflowers (1888) and the wheat fields, built from chrome yellow pigment used at close to full strength. It is warmer and heavier than a lemon yellow, with an ochre undertone that keeps it from reading as synthetic. In the Arles paintings it is usually paired with violet or blue, not with more yellow.
Cobalt Blue
#1F3A93
Sky, shadow, typeA deep, slightly violet blue from the sky and the swirling night in The Starry Night (1889). Cobalt and ultramarine sit at the center of Van Gogh's later palette; he used them for shadow as well as sky, which is why his darks rarely read as black. At full strength it is too heavy for a large interior field, but it holds type and small shapes well.
Structural
Structural Neutrals
The structural colors are the ones that let the complements sit without vibrating. Starry Night Navy replaces black, Almond Blossom Sky replaces white, and Canvas Cream holds the middle. None of them is neutral in the photographic sense; each carries a temperature, which is why the palette stays warm and cool at the same time.
Starry Night Navy
#1A2A4A
Grounding darks, outlines, typeThe near-black blue that forms the village roofs and the deep ground of the night paintings. It is the palette's darkest value and its replacement for black. Use it where you would reach for black — outlines, type, grounding shapes — and the palette keeps its temperature.
Almond Blossom Sky
#A9C9D6
Sky, walls, light fieldsA pale, cool blue from the sky of Almond Blossom (1890), painted in Saint-Rémy for the birth of his nephew. It is the lightest cool tone in the palette and the one that makes the yellows read as warm rather than muddy. Pair it with cream before you pair it with white.
Canvas Cream
#E9DFC6
Canvas ground, walls, paperThe warm, slightly yellow off-white of primed canvas and the pale roads and walls in the Arles work. It is the neutral that holds the palette together: without it, cobalt and chrome yellow meet too hard. Use it as the field color in interiors and as the background in layouts.
The Painter
Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch painter whose color system was built on complementary pairs and mineral pigments rather than on black and white.
He was born in Zundert in 1853, worked as an art dealer and a preacher, and began painting seriously in his late twenties. The palette most people recognize comes from a short period: Arles from 1888, where he painted the Sunflowers and The Bedroom, and the asylum at Saint-Rémy from 1889, where he painted Irises and The Starry Night. His letters to his brother Theo describe the logic directly. Yellow and violet, blue and orange, red and green: each pair was chosen to make the other color register more strongly, and the darks were mixed from blue and green rather than black. He also used the material of paint as color — thick impasto, visible brush marks, canvas showing through — which is why a flat hex value can only approximate the effect. For designers, the useful part is the pairing rule. Pick one dominant hue and its complement, then let mixed neutrals carry the rest. The Monet palette applies a softer version of the same complementary logic to the garden at Giverny, and the Kandinsky palette turns the period's color theory into geometric form.
Use sparingly
Accent Colors
Iris Violet and Vermilion are the colors that complete the complement system. Violet is yellow's opposite, and Van Gogh mixed it from red and blue rather than buying a violet pigment; Vermilion is the warm red-orange that appears in poppies, roofs, and the border of The Bedroom. Both are stronger than they look in reproduction, so they work best in small areas.
Iris Violet
#6E5A8C
Florals, upholstery, secondary shapesA muted violet drawn from the Irises (1889) and the shadows in the yellow paintings. Van Gogh used violet as the complement to yellow, often mixing it from red and blue rather than buying a violet pigment. It is the palette's most useful bridge color: soft enough for a wall, distinct enough to register as color.
Vermilion
#C8452F
Small accents, textiles, flowersA warm red-orange from the poppies, the roofs of Arles, and the border of The Bedroom (1888). It is mixed toward orange rather than blue, so it sits closer to the chrome yellow than to the violet. Use it in small areas — a chair, a stripe, a single flower — or it overwhelms the blues.
What to skip
Colors to Avoid
Van Gogh's later palette is mineral and mixed. Colors that break it are the ones with no earth in them: screen-native saturations, true black, and the acid end of the green range. Each one removes a layer of mixing that the paintings depend on.
Neon Magenta
#FF00AA
A screen-native magenta with no mineral equivalent. Van Gogh's pinks and violets are mixed, greyed, and broken; this color is flat and fully saturated, so it collapses the difference between his mixed tones and a digital swatch. It also pushes the palette toward pop art, which is a different century.
Pure Black
#000000
Van Gogh's later darks are Prussian blue, cobalt, and dark green, not black. Pure black flattens the night skies into a void and removes the blue temperature that makes The Starry Night feel airless and moving at once. If you need a dark, use Starry Night Navy (#1A2A4A).
Acid Green
#A8FF00
The greens in the Irises and the wheat fields are viridian, olive, and yellow-green mixed with earth. An acid green sits outside that range: it is brighter than any plant in the paintings and pulls attention away from the yellow-blue complement that structures the palette.
About this palette
Hex values were sampled from published reproductions of The Starry Night (1889, Museum of Modern Art), Sunflowers (1888, National Gallery, London), The Bedroom (1888, Van Gogh Museum), Irises (1889, Getty Museum), and Almond Blossom (1890, Van Gogh Museum), then adjusted for consistent screen display. They are approximations of oil paint under museum lighting, not measurements of the pigments themselves. Van Gogh's chrome yellows have faded and darkened in some works, and the blues vary with varnish and restoration, so the values here represent the paintings as they are commonly reproduced rather than their original appearance.
FAQ
Common Questions
What is the Van Gogh color palette?+
It is a mineral palette built on complementary pairs: chrome yellow against violet, cobalt blue against orange-red, and green against red, with cream and dark blue carrying the neutrals. The best-known version comes from the Arles and Saint-Rémy paintings of 1888–1890, where the darks are mixed from blue and green rather than black.
What colors did Van Gogh use in The Starry Night?+
The sky is built from cobalt and ultramarine blues with chrome yellow for the stars and moon, and the village is dark blue and brown rather than black. The yellows are thickly applied, so they sit on top of the blue instead of blending into it. A reproducible set is Cobalt Blue (#1F3A93), Starry Night Navy (#1A2A4A), and Chrome Yellow (#E8B33A).
Why did Van Gogh use complementary colors?+
Complementary pairs make each color look more intense when they sit next to each other. Van Gogh used yellow with violet, blue with orange, and red with green to create vibration without relying on tonal contrast. He often mixed the complement into the main color as well, which is why his yellows contain violet and his blues contain orange.
How do I use this palette in interior design?+
Put Cobalt Blue (#1F3A93) or Starry Night Navy (#1A2A4A) on a wall or a large piece of furniture, keep the trim and ceiling in Canvas Cream (#E9DFC6), and bring Chrome Yellow (#E8B33A) in through textiles and small objects. Iris Violet (#6E5A8C) works as a softer secondary for upholstery. Keep the total number of saturated colors to two.
What is the difference between the Van Gogh and Monet palettes?+
Van Gogh's palette is heavier and more contrast-driven: solid cobalt, chrome yellow, and dark blue outlines. Monet's is lighter and more broken, with pale blues, pinks, and greens layered to suggest light. The [Monet palette](/color-palettes/monet-color-palette/) is the better choice for calm interiors; Van Gogh's is stronger for graphics and statement rooms.
Can I use this palette in branding?+
Yes, but treat it as a high-contrast system. Chrome yellow and cobalt blue make a memorable pair for a logotype or packaging, provided one of them dominates. The risk is folk-art or souvenir-shop association, so keep the typography modern and avoid sunflower or starry-night imagery. Use Canvas Cream (#E9DFC6) as the background instead of white.
Related Palettes
Explore More
Browse all color palettes