PortinariColors
Color Palettes Inspired by the Paintings of Candido Portinari
Color palettes inspired by paintings of Candido Portinari held by
the Sao Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) and by his Guerra (War) and Paz (Peace)
panels at the United Nations Headquarters. Provides qualitative, diverging
and sequential palettes for discrete and continuous data, ready-made
'ggplot2' color and fill scales, and a colorblind-safety check that
simulates protanopia, deuteranopia and tritanopia following Machado,
Oliveira and Fernandes (2009)
PortinariColors 
Color palettes inspired by paintings of Candido Portinari in the Museu de Arte
de Sao Paulo (MASP) collection and by his Guerra and Paz panels at the
United Nations Headquarters in New York. Fast to use, easy to plot with, and built for
ggplot2.
Installation
# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("rafalopespx/PortinariColors")
Quick start
library(PortinariColors)
library(ggplot2)
portinari.pal("cafe") # full palette as hex codes
portinari.pal("retirantes", n = 3) # 3 colors: both ends and the center
portinari.pal("guerra_azul", n = 20, type = "continuous") # interpolated
# Qualitative: unordered groups
ggplot(mtcars, aes(wt, mpg, colour = factor(cyl))) +
geom_point(size = 3) +
scale_color_portinari("cafe", name = "Cylinders")
# Sequential: ordered values
ggplot(faithfuld, aes(waiting, eruptions, fill = density)) +
geom_raster() +
scale_fill_portinari("guerra_azul", type = "continuous", direction = -1)
# Diverging: values around a midpoint
ggplot(mtcars, aes(wt, mpg, colour = mpg - mean(mpg))) +
geom_point(size = 3) +
scale_color_portinari("guerra", type = "continuous")
Discrete palettes pick colors to suit the palette style: the most distinct colors for qualitative palettes, evenly spaced steps for sequential palettes, and balanced steps either side of the light center for diverging palettes. Continuous palettes interpolate the full palette in CIELAB.
Main functions
| Function | Purpose |
|---|---|
portinari.pal() |
Get a palette as hex colors (discrete or continuous) |
scale_color_portinari() / scale_colour_portinari() |
ggplot2 color scale |
scale_fill_portinari() |
ggplot2 fill scale |
portinari.palettes() |
Table of palettes by style, with colorblind status |
portinari.works() |
The paintings behind each palette, with links |
portinari.cvd.check() |
Colorblind simulation for a palette |
show_portinari() |
Draw palettes as swatches |
portinari.pal() and the scale functions share the same arguments:
type = "discrete" | "continuous", direction = 1 | -1, and
colorblind = TRUE | FALSE.
Palettes
| Palette | Style | Colors | Colorblind-safe | Works |
|---|---|---|---|---|
cafe |
qualitative | 6 | all 6 | Coffee Agricultural Worker; Saint Francis |
paz |
qualitative | 8 | 4 | Paz (Peace), UN Headquarters panel |
retirantes |
diverging | 8 | all 8 | Northeastern Migrants; Dead Child; Bust of the Poet Felippe d'Oliveira; Mr. Queiroz Lima |
inah |
diverging | 5 | 4 | Portrait of Ináh Prudente de Moraes |
sofia |
diverging | 5 | 3 | Portrait of Sofia Cantalupo |
guerra |
diverging | 9 | all 9 | Guerra (War), UN Headquarters panel |
guerra_azul |
sequential | 6 | all 6 | Blue scale of Guerra |
paz_ouro |
sequential | 4 | all 4 | Earth-to-gold run of Paz |
See The paintings for images and links to every work, and Choosing a palette style for when to use each style.
Palettes are merged when they are too similar. Candidate palettes were
compared by mean CIELAB distance. Two groups were merged this way:
the migrant-series works with the 'Felippe d'Oliveira bust' and the 'Queiroz Lima'
portrait, and the 'Coffee Agricultural Worker' with 'Saint Francis'. guerra and
paz are distinct from every other palette (closest: paz vs cafe, dE 18.9),
so they stay separate. guerra_azul and paz_ouro are sequential subsets of
the two panels and are kept on purpose: they serve a different kind of data
rather than duplicating a palette.
Use colorblind = TRUE to keep only the colorblind-safe colors of a palette:
portinari.pal("inah", colorblind = TRUE) # 4 safe colors
portinari.cvd.check("sofia") # see where the palette breaks down
Important: colors are estimates
The hex values are hand-estimated from the dominant tones of each painting.
They were not sampled from the MASP images. guerra and paz follow
published descriptions of the panels: Guerra as "a symphony in blue" of deep
violet tones over light blues tending to pale citrine, with an orange-to-red
counterpoint, and Paz as dominated by golden yellows. Treat them as a starting point.
data-raw/extract_masp_palettes.R samples the originals when the MASP site is
reachable, and data-raw/palette_selection.py reproduces the merge and
colorblind analysis.
Colorblind safety
A palette is colorblind-safe for its first n colors when those colors stay
at least CIE76 dE 10 apart under protanopia, deuteranopia and tritanopia
simulation Machado et al., 2009. The simulation is in portinari.cvd.check().
Contributing
Add a palette by appending an entry to .portinari_palettes in
R/palettes.R. Order the colors by priority, then set cvd_n by running
portinari.cvd.check() on the new palette.
Credits
Works by Candido Portinari (1903-1962). Images and metadata are from the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo (MASP) collection. The palettes are an inspired interpretation, not an official MASP product.
The package API follows the conventions of MoMAColors and MetBrewer.