All posts by Rosie Lesso

MECCA ORANGE linen is backlit with scorching heat, recalling French Fauvist Andre Derain’s glowing, sun streaked landscapes. He was intoxicated with the golden light in the South of France, painting it with heightened colours that seem to buzz with the electrifying energy of life. Looking back on the frenetic brushstrokes and dazzling colours of Fauvism…

Deep, dark and indulgent, DULSE linen’s blackberry stained hue can invoke both the theatrical grandeur of royalty and the hidden depths of primordial desire. The colour has great significance for British sculptor Anish Kapoor, whose deliciously sensuous sculptures tap in to red’s cultural history, while enlivening a primitive essence within the human body, as writer Stella Paul points out,…

SANGUINE linen shares an earthy, enveloping warmth with the great French Post-Impressionist Paul Cezanne, who infused his paintings with this glorious, sun glazed terracotta. Famously writing “the truth is in nature”, Cezanne obsessively copied the colour and light in the South of France onto canvas, capturing golden sunlight with soft sandy and earthy hues as…

Russian Romantic painter Ivan Aivazovsky was entranced by the wild, untameable energy of the sea, painting it in bruised blue and purple tones punctuated by white moonlight. ABYSS linen recalls the deepest tones in Aivazovsky’s brooding seascapes, a rich indigo that suggests tempestuous, brewing drama. In the face of nature’s sheer, destructive force Aivazovsky saw…

CORAL linen is a colour filled with heat and fire, burning with the raging intensity of a Spanish sunset. For the deeply passionate painter Joan Miro this red held great significance, both as a patriotic symbol for his native Spain and a potent carrier of raw, overflowing emotion that spills out from his canvases and…

The deep, inky tone of ROYAL PURPLE linen has the warm intensity of a dwindling sunset as the light fades into shadow. This time of day was a favourite with painter Paul Signac, who saw deep purple tones in the shadows around him as the golden sun of his native France began to sink downwards…

VINEYARD GREEN linen is the colour of energy and growth, suggesting fleshy leaves and dense meadows of wild grass cast into an oasis of cool shade. French Impressionist painter Claude Monet saw the rich, vital potential of this colour, returning to it again and again throughout his career to convey the depth and variety of…