Light precedes object in Vermeer; it is as though it is the light itself that is imagining the scene within the painting.

His paintings are veritable explosions of light. They are canvases pulsing with energy made visible.

daughter of the moon, kin to its rhythm of red tide.

Red is a threshold colour; it tends to accompany and intensify beginnings and endings.

Scáth includes the positive meaning of shelter. There is an old proverb: ‘Is ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine’, i.e., People live in one another’s shadow. This proverb suggests the intimacy of Celtic folk culture as a cohesive web which protects individuality in its shelter.

Every rainbow is a revelation: the optic through water drops that separates seamless daylight to reveal and display the secret inlay of colours that dwell at the heart of ordinary light.

criticism and make your heart into a place of torment. Harsh and unrelenting, it finds fault with everything. Even when unexpected acknowledgement or recognition comes your way, this voice will claw at you and make you feel you are unworthy. Nothing can ever be good enough. In some people’s lives this self-critical voice is highly developed and has

It reminds us that we are children of the eternal and that our time on earth is meant to be a pilgrimage of growth and creativity.

Schopenhauer considered the world and its inhabitants embodiments of longing.