Vision expert (and app designer) Kazunori Asad, Ph.D. viewed many of Van Gogh's works through a special app clled the Chromatic Vision Simulator, which makes people who aren't colorblind see what the world looks like to colorblind people. There are many types of colorblindness and the app adjusts for all of these types.
Anyway, Asad's theory is that Van Gogh had protanopia, or an inability to see reds. Green would look like red to someone with protanopia. This may explain why Van Gogh used blue, green, yellow and black heavily in his best-known works. In some intances, there seems to be more detail revealed for someone with prontapia than for someone with normal color vision.
I've seen the comparisons and I don't see that much of a difference. For example, can you tell which is the real Sunflowers and which is the one seen through the app? Neither can I, although I can see that the Sunflowers on the right is darker. (That's the one those with protanopia see.) Perhaps that mean that I have some trouble distinguishing between colors, too. Van Gogh did not get on well with any of his art teachers and this may have been one of the reasons.
This could also explain why Van Gogh's black and white drawings are often far more realistic than his best-known paintings. He was able to judge the shades and colors better than for painting. And yet he wrote in his letters that he felt driven to paint. It could have been part of his nature to attempt the very things others told him that he could (or should) not do.
Van Gogh had red hair. I wonder if he was able to see it or just took everyone's word that he had red hair.
Remember that red hair is really orange, though. I also read somewhere that a potential side effect of digitalis (which he was apparently on) can be to make people see things in yellow.. which might explain his abundant use of yellow.
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