blue, blue pigment, calm, copper azurite, craft, Girl with a Pearl Earring, lapis lazuli, love of making, oil on canvas, shimmering, The Lacemaker, ultramarine, Vermeer

The Blue of Vermeer…

30th November

  The much loved seventeenth century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer remains something of an enigma, even today.   After his death in 1675, unlike many artists, Vermeer did not leave behind any drawings or plans of his paintings, nor any diaries.  Yet we have come to recognise and relish the idyllic quality that Vermeer captures in...

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ancient sculpture, blue, blue pigment, British Museum, cave paintings, cerulean blue, Cleopatra, drapery, Egyptian Blue, Egyptians, lapis lazuli, Mediterranean, pigment, tempera, turquoise

In The Beginning…

8th November

Blue is all around us.  As the renowned British presenter and naturalist Sir David Attenborough reminds us, our beautiful Earth is so abundant in oceans, it is often referred to as The Blue Planet.  Yet, as surrounded by blue as we are, it has not been the easiest colour from which to create pigment. Early...

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