There's a lot to take in when starting Genshin Impact. With a big, vibrant world filled with things to explore, players could walk in any direction and hit something interesting. But perhaps the best way to get started in Genshin Impact is to find quests and, basically, never stop.

1. Vermeer Paintbrush And Paints Sets

This is because there are a lot of quests to go around, many exploring the nooks and crannies of Genshin Impact's world. While it's best to stay with the main story quest at first, there are other quests out there waiting for more experienced players. One of these involves Luhua Pool, which is not only beautiful, but also hiding a secret. There's an artist there who's having some trouble with his art supplies and needs the player's help. Here's how to do it.

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The following is a list of paintings by the Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675). After two or three early history paintings, he concentrated almost entirely on genre works, typically interiors with one or two figures. There are two Vermeer's paintbrush locations, which can be found on the opposite sides of the Luhua Pool (see the map above for the exact spots). There you will find two backpacks filled with paints and paintbrushes. Take both of them and bring them back to Vermeer. This will allow you to proceed with the rest of the Luhua landscape quest.

Step 1: Luhua Pool

The entire quest is centered around Luhua Pool in Liyue, a large lake with some circular ruins in it. Players will find Veneer, the NPC who gives the quest, right nearby. He's a painter who is trying to capture the beauty of the lake, but unfortunately he's lost his painting equipment. Keep in mind that the recommended level for this quest is 30. Be sure to level up and raise the adventure rank before attempting the quest.

Step 2: Finding the Supplies

There are really only two things players have to find here: Vermeer's paintbrush and his paints. Unfortunately he somehow managed to lose them on completely opposite sides of the lake. The distance is just long enough to be annoying, but Genshin Impact's fast travel can help. The brush is at some ruins, in a section overlooking the lake, in what looks like a campsite. There's a glowing spot on the ground, in the corner of a ruined wall. That's the brush.

Next, travel across the lake to the top of a hill. A similar campsite will greet you, complete with books lying around in piles. The paints are there, right under the lip of the cliff. Both of these locations show up in Verneer's painting, which can help when looking for the exact locations.

Step 3: The Statues

The paint is not the end of the quest. Afterwards, players must find a special stone by the Pool's shores. Once found, this stone (plus one more from Verneer) must be placed atop two statues. Once that's done, players will need to use a Geo skill to open a secret passage. Since it's recommended that players reroll their starting character to get Anemo skills, be sure to bring a character with Geo power to the spot.

Step 4: The Fight

All of this leads to a battle against three Abyss Mages, each with a different element. Be sure to learn the elemental matchups against bosses, and players should be good to go.

Genshin Impact is available on PC, PS4, and mobile, with a Switch version in development

MORE: Genshin Impact: How to Explore and Unlock the Tri Seal

Origin, History and Characteristics

(oltremare, lapis lazuli)

Vermeer, as many painters of his time, employed a very limited palette. The only substantial difference in his palette in respects to those of his contemporaries was the extensive use of natural ultramarine (pure lapis lazuli) rather than the much cheaper azurite.

Natural ultramarine is made of the powder of the crushed semi-precious stone lapis lazuli which, after being thoroughly purified by repeated washings, is bonded to a drying oil through hand mulling. The exact proportions between pigment (powdered lapis lazuli) and vehicle (natural drying oil) and correct amount of hand mulling necessary to produce the highest quality paint can be only acquired by experience. Even when the process is mastered the resulting paint has a very fastidious stringy quality which makes it difficult to brush out evenly. However, mixed with white this defect is less noticeable. The final product is a very deep transparent blue. Set aside other pigments on the artist's palette, it is one of the darkest, only black is darker. Mixed with lead white, it maintains its radiant purity and brilliance even in the palest shades. The superior cost, complicated preparation and poor brushing qualities of natural ultramarine are offset by the exceptional brilliance and purity of the final product. Genuine ultramarine made of lapis lazuli is no longer produced and has been replaced by synthetically produced ultramarine blue.

Most painters used natural ultramarine economically in thin glazes over an opaque underpainting rather than in body color.

LOOKING OVER VERMEER'S SHOULDER

The complete book about seventeenth-century painting techniques, studio practices and materials, with particular focus on the work of Johannes Vermeer.

2020 | PDF | 3 volumes | 294 pages

Looking Over Vermeer's Shoulder is a comprehensive study of the materials and painting techniques that made Vermeer one of the greatest masters of European art. In order to form the clearest picture of his day-to-day methods we must not only look at what went on inside Vermeer's studio, but what went on inside the studios of his most accomplished colleagues as well.

Looking Over Vermeer's Shoulder, then, lays out in comprehensible language every facet of 17th-century painting practices including topics such as artistic training, canvas preparation, underdrawing, underpainting, glazing, palette, brushes, pigments and composition. Also investigated are a number of issues as they relate specifically to the art of Vermeer such as the camera obscura, studio organization as well as how he depicted wall-maps, floor tiles, pictures-within-pictures, Turkish carpets and other of his most characteristic motifs.

Bolstered by his qualifications as a Vermeer connoisseur and practicing painter, the three-volume PDF format permits the author to address each of the book's 24 topics with requisite attention. By observing at close quarters the studio practices of Vermeer and his preeminent contemporaries the reader will acquire a concrete understanding of 17th-century painting methods and gain a fresh view of Vermeer's 35 works of art, which reveal a seamless unity of craft and poetry.

While not written as a 'how-to' manual, aspiring realist painters will find a true treasure trove of technical information that can be apdapted to almost any style of figurative painting.

Looking Over Vermeer's Shoulder (beta version)
author: Jonathan Janson
date: 2020 (second edition)
pages: 294
format: PDF | 3 volumes
illustrations: 200-plus illustrations and diagrams

3 Volumes: $29.95

All three volumes can be purchased individually below.

VOL I (11MB) $11.99

1 / Vermeer's Training, Technical Background and Ambitions
2 / An Overview of Vermeer’s Technical & Stylistic Evolution
3 / Fame, Originality & Subject Matter
4 / Reality or Illusion: Did Vermeer’s Interiors ever Exist?
5 / Color
6 / Composition
7 / Mimesi & Illusionism

VOL II (17MB) $11.99

8 / Perspective
9 / Camera Obscura Vision
10 / Light & Modeling
11 / Studio
12 / Four Essential Motifs in Vermeer’s Oeuvre
13 / Drapery
14 / Painting Flesh

VOL III (13MB) $11.99

15 / Canvas
16 / Grounding
17 / “Inventing,” or Underdrawing
18 / “Dead-Coloring,” or Underpainting
19 / “Working-up,” or Finishing
20 / Glazing
21 / Mediums, Binders & Varnishes
22 / Paint Application & Consistency
23 / Pigments, Paints & Palettes
24 / Brushes & Brushwork

* please note:
Looking Over Vermeer's Shoulder has not undergone a final copy edit, so minor errors in grammar, footnotation and image captions may be occasionally encountered. As soon as the final copy edit becomes available the purchaser will be notified and, on request, receive it without delay or charge.

Natural Ultramarine in Vermeer's Painting

The use of natural ultramarine in Vermeer's painting could easily constitute a study in itself. Although genuine ultramarine can be found in almost every painting by Vermeer, it is truly surprising to what extent Vermeer actually employed the pigment. Not only is it found in blue colored objects themselves but upon close inspection traces can be found in the shaded portions of white drapery, ceramic jugs (fig. 1), black marble tiles, green foliage, white washed walls and even in the shadows of the brilliant orange gown in The Glass of Wine. A fine example of genuine ultramarine can be seen in the satin gown of Woman in Blue Reading a Letter(fig. 2), although it is now less brilliant today due to aging of the varnish. The gem-like depth of the wrap (fig. 3) in The Milkmaidis another. In this case, the excellent state of conservation of the painting allows us to appreciate in full the chromatic brilliance of pure lapis lazuli.

'In The Music Lesson, ultramarine was used for the shadow in the flesh tones of the male figure. It is also found combined in mixtures to produce a range of other colors: for example ultramarine has been mixed with red lake to form an array of purples such as the leaded lights, tablecloth pattern, man's sash and for shading the wall on the left. Most extraordinary, however is that the costly mineral blue pigment was used to produce the mixed brown of the ceiling beams, with the likely aim of achieving an integrated coloristic harmony.'¹

The ultramarine-containing paint used by Vermeer has sometimes blanched with time resulting in a generally paler color than it would have been originally in a number of areas, for example in the design of the tiles in The Lady Seated at a Virginal(fig. 4). The darkening of the binding medium and additional components present in the paint layers of the curtain and tablecloth in The Guitar Player make it difficult to be sure whether a dark purple-blue or blue-green color was originally intended for these fields of color.²

Vermeer's copious use of natural ultramarine seems to have reached an almost obsessive degree unless we understand just how perceptive was the artist's eye. Vermeer realized early in his career that the admixture of genuine ultramarine with tones of gray, usually composed of lead white, bone black and raw umber in varying proportions, lends them a characteristic luminosity produced by intense daylight which cannot be produced otherwise. This technique is to found only in Vermeer's paintings. Mixtures of blue in the shadows was to be employed many years later by the French impressionists to suggest the effect of full daylight.

Another example of Vermeer's extensive use of natural ultramarine can be found in Young Woman with a Water Pitcher. Obviously, it was used to paint the folded blue drapery on the table, in a more or less conventional way. It was also used in the window to render the incoming daylight which passes through the glass pains. Vermeer applied delicate opaque and semi-transparent layers of natural ultramarine mixed with white lead in varying proportions over the warm tone of the canvas preparation which in places can still be observed in order to register the varying degrees of intensity of light as it plays on and through the surface of the uneven glass. Observed with care, we can see that even the lead molding has been painted with lapis lazuli, this time Vermeer brushed genuine ultramarine mixed with only a very small quantity of white over the darker underpainting. The contrast between the bluish overtone of the glass and the warm toned sunlight portion of the window frame is absolutely natural. The head dress worn by the young woman was first modeled in shades of white and neutral gray. Once dry, Vermeer superimposed the pale shades of genuine ultramarine to render the candid transparency of the starched clothe inundated by sunlight. Natural ultramarine is even found in the light gray paint of the background wall.

Shadows of white objects are particularly difficult to integrate into the overall tonality of a painting. Dutch painters invariably used mixtures of black or raw umber to render the shadows of white objects and to deepen tones of local color as well. While this technique maintains an chromatic unity within the painting, it fails to suggest the freshness of natural daylight that Vermeer strove to capture.

Recent examination of the Lady Seated at a Virginal³ has revealed that Vermeer combined precious ultramarine with the rather mundane green earth, a flat green pigment, to form a range of blue-greens for the lady's dress (fig. 5). Mixtures of ultramarine and green earth were also applied over an underpaint of green earth combined with black for the patterned curtain in this painting.

† FOOTNOTES †

Vermeer Paintbrush And Paints Sets

1. Helen Howard, David Peggie and Rachel Billinge, Helen Howard, David Peggie and Rachel Billinge, 'Pigments,' Vermeer's Palette, National Gallery website. http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/meaning-of-making/vermeer-and-technique/vermeers-palette#yellowlake
2. Helen Howard, David Peggie and Rachel Billinge, 'Pigments,' Vermeer's Palette, National Gallery website. http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/meaning-of-making/vermeer-and-technique/vermeers-palette#yellowlake
3. Helen Howard, David Peggie and Rachel Billinge, 'Pigments,' Vermeer's Palette, National Gallery website. http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/meaning-of-making/vermeer-and-technique/vermeers-palette#yellowlake