Academic Sessions: London 2003
Articulations in Blue
Convenors:
Helen Glanville, h.glanville@ucl.ac.uk and Libby Sheldon, l.sheldon@ucl.ac.uk
University College, London.
Abstract:
The significance of blues in colour composition will be discussed in the context of the availability, economics, characteristics and employment of the wide range of pigments which make a blue. It also hopes to show the importance of certain types of blue and the ways in which they can influence the balance of the whole palette.
It will highlight the interest painters took in the optical properties of various pigments and the measures artists took to achieve a colour when poverty or lack of availability, did not allow them to use the blue they desired.
The session looks at newly discovered blues in 17th–century Dutch paintings, and considers how and why they were chosen and have been employed. It also will consider whether certain blue pigments such as smalt have deteriorated, or whether they were employed for another purpose. If they have changed, what this means for our interpretation of the paintings. We will also discuss the part played by the identification of particular blues within a painting in matters of attribution.
The second part of the session will be looking at the relativity of the colour blue. Since time immemorial blue has been associated with the heavens, and yet the sky is not made up of blue particles, it simply APPEARS blue. The role of perception as investigated by Aristotle, Leonardo, Newton and then Goethe, and the use painters made of these philosophical and scientific theories will be discussed, and questions asked as to the relativity of meaning and impact of colour in general and blue in particular through the ages.
Stephen Gritt (National Gallery of Art, Ottawa) Delacroix’s Journal: an articulation of painting technique.
Libby Sheldon (University College London) Blue Pigments: the Painter’s Choice and Handling – a Path to Attribution?
Sarah Richards (Manchester Metropolitan University) Smalt and Zaffer in 17th–century Painting and Pottery.
Spike Bucklow (Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge) Platonic Blues.
Martha Ioannidou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) The Blue Face of Immortality.
Helen Glanville (University College London) Restoration and Authentication: Articulations in Time.
Helen Glanville, h.glanville@ucl.ac.uk and Libby Sheldon, l.sheldon@ucl.ac.uk
University College, London.
Abstract:
The significance of blues in colour composition will be discussed in the context of the availability, economics, characteristics and employment of the wide range of pigments which make a blue. It also hopes to show the importance of certain types of blue and the ways in which they can influence the balance of the whole palette.
It will highlight the interest painters took in the optical properties of various pigments and the measures artists took to achieve a colour when poverty or lack of availability, did not allow them to use the blue they desired.
The session looks at newly discovered blues in 17th–century Dutch paintings, and considers how and why they were chosen and have been employed. It also will consider whether certain blue pigments such as smalt have deteriorated, or whether they were employed for another purpose. If they have changed, what this means for our interpretation of the paintings. We will also discuss the part played by the identification of particular blues within a painting in matters of attribution.
The second part of the session will be looking at the relativity of the colour blue. Since time immemorial blue has been associated with the heavens, and yet the sky is not made up of blue particles, it simply APPEARS blue. The role of perception as investigated by Aristotle, Leonardo, Newton and then Goethe, and the use painters made of these philosophical and scientific theories will be discussed, and questions asked as to the relativity of meaning and impact of colour in general and blue in particular through the ages.
Stephen Gritt (National Gallery of Art, Ottawa) Delacroix’s Journal: an articulation of painting technique.
Libby Sheldon (University College London) Blue Pigments: the Painter’s Choice and Handling – a Path to Attribution?
Sarah Richards (Manchester Metropolitan University) Smalt and Zaffer in 17th–century Painting and Pottery.
Spike Bucklow (Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge) Platonic Blues.
Martha Ioannidou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) The Blue Face of Immortality.
Helen Glanville (University College London) Restoration and Authentication: Articulations in Time.