The yolk of fresh hens’ eggs used as a binder for fine and thin brushstrokes, from about 1250-1500, and revived in 19th and 20th centuries.
Duccio
First imported through Venice by 1300, it became more precious than gold until it could be made synthetically from 1830. The queen of pigments.
The red that lasts hundreds of years without fading, but it’s a highly toxic salt of mercury. Used in European paintings from the Romans to the late 19th century.
By William Blake, GĂ©rĂ´me, Fritz von Uhde, Maurice Denis, Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, and Joseph Stella. Merry Christmas!
Myths of the strange births of Venus, Bacchus, Helen and Adonis, the Nativity, and Ford Madox Brown’s son.
A small selection of favourites from its huge and eclectic collection, from Duccio in about 1310 to Joseph Wright of Derby and a gem from Thomas Jones.
Early paintings of the Nativity from 1263 to 1504, from Duccio, Robert Campin, Petrus Christus, Botticelli and Fra Bartolomeo.
Relative size can express relative importance, rather than giving a sense of depth. Although ancient tradition, it still appears in more modern paintings.
How truth is associated with a well, where Jesus spoke with a Samaritan woman, where to dispose of a rapist, and one of Paul Signac’s less successful paintings.
Instead of splitting scenes into separate frames as in comics, in the Renaissance they’d be integrated into a single image
The Eclectic Light Company 