Do you know a painter called Van der Meer . . . the palette of this curious painter consists of blue, lemon yellow, pearl grey, black and white. In his very few paintings there is in fact the whole richness of a complete palette; but the combination of lemon yellow, pale blue and pearl grey is as characteristic to him as the black, white, grey and pink are to Velazquez.

—Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to Bernard, quoted by Bridget Riley in Colour for the Painter, an essay in Colour: Art & Science, edited by Trevor Lamb and Janine Bourriau, 1995.