Blue

I have now been self-isolating for 16 days - going out only for my daily walk and once a week for essential shopping. Today's walk was very cold, with a flurry of snow, which made keeping 150 metres from other people quite simple. Whilst walking, I listened to Roy Harper's Stormcock, from 1971 on which my favourite song is Me and My Woman.

Back in the warm, I read about Bellini's "St Mark Preaching in Alexandria"(1504-1507) - based on a visit of the saint to the then thriving Egyptian City 1400 years previously. Bellini, based in Venice, never visited Alexandria but did go to Constantinople. The building in the centre of the picture is very similar to St Mark's Cathedral in Venice, apart from the large curved buttresses. Many of the other details are Islamic.

One significant feature is the depiction of St Mark himself.  By 1504 it was no longer acceptable to paint the main character in such a scene much larger than the others, to denote significance.  Bellini highlights St Mark in his composition by means of the left curved buttress in the background pointing towards him and by painting him wearing a vivid blue cloak. In the first century, when the scene is set, blue was a very unpopular colour and remained so for over a thousand years. However, by 1504 its use, by means of very expensive pigments from the stone lapis lazuli, had become fashionable.