The woman's satin garment is painted almost entirely with varying shades of ultramarine blue, white and small quantities of black in the deepest shadows. Vermeer used blue more than any other "strong" color. The fact that he preferred the highest grade of natural ultramarine, the most brilliant and expensive blue pigment available of his time, testifies to the importance he associated with its optical quality and it is not out of the question that the noble lineage of this "pigment of pigments" may have come into play. In the later years of financial hardship, his patron Pieter van Ruijven may have financed such an expensive habit.
Perhaps the satin dress of the Woman in Blue Reading a Letter best illustrates the psychological power of blue. Throughout history blue was the color of all heavenly gods. It stands for distance, the divine and the spiritual. This interpretation goes back to ancient Egyptians and was taken on by later cultures. From a psychological point of view blue tends to invoke dreamlike states. It instills yearnings, has a calming effect and leads to meditative introspection. Ultramarine blue, which seems to have been employed almost obsessively in the present picture, is even found in the light gray mixtures of the wall and the round ball of the map hanger. Vermeer used the same technique in the Woman Holding a Water Pitcher of the same years.
Natural ultramarine pigment (the coloring substance of paint) is made of the powder of the crushed semi-precious stone lapis lazuli. After being thoroughly purified by repeated washings, the powder is bonded to a drying oil through hand mulling. Only stones of the highest quality could be prepared just by washing and grinding. For lower qualities a laborious method of extracting the mineral lazurite was necessary, which Cennini described in his treatise (c. 1390). The best varieties of lapis lazuli were imported from Afghanistan via Venice.
Perhaps the satin dress of the Woman in Blue Reading a Letter best illustrates the psychological power of blue. Throughout history blue was the color of all heavenly gods. It stands for distance, the divine and the spiritual. This interpretation goes back to ancient Egyptians and was taken on by later cultures. From a psychological point of view blue tends to invoke dreamlike states. It instills yearnings, has a calming effect and leads to meditative introspection. Ultramarine blue, which seems to have been employed almost obsessively in the present picture, is even found in the light gray mixtures of the wall and the round ball of the map hanger. Vermeer used the same technique in the Woman Holding a Water Pitcher of the same years.
Natural ultramarine pigment (the coloring substance of paint) is made of the powder of the crushed semi-precious stone lapis lazuli. After being thoroughly purified by repeated washings, the powder is bonded to a drying oil through hand mulling. Only stones of the highest quality could be prepared just by washing and grinding. For lower qualities a laborious method of extracting the mineral lazurite was necessary, which Cennini described in his treatise (c. 1390). The best varieties of lapis lazuli were imported from Afghanistan via Venice.
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