blue, cobalt blue, Haystacks, Renoir, Starry Night, The Umbrellas, Thenard, Van Gogh, Vermeer

‘Cobalt – a divine colour…for putting space around things’ Van Gogh

15th July

  The metal cobalt has been used for centuries as an ingredient in glass making. It can be found in the luminous bright colours of medieval stained glass windows, as well as in the blue and white pottery of China produced during the Tang dynasty. Then, in the nineteenth century, the pigment cobalt blue was produced...

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blue horizon, Blue Verditer, cobalt blue, Goethe, Indigo, John Ruskin, luminosity, oil on canvas, pigments, Prussian blue, The Fighting Temeraire, The Royal Academy of Arts, Theory of Colours, Turner, white sails

Watching the White Sails in the Heart of the Ocean…

23rd November

“Do we dream, or does the white forked sail drift nearer, and nearer yet, diminishing the blue sea between us with the fullness of its wings?” John Ruskin on Turner In The Fighting Temeraire, it has long been presumed that Turner’s viewpoint would have been the London Embankment, watching as the famous and victorious Temeraire ship...

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