Picasso's Blue Period was done in hot, bright hues. The painting considered the first of his Blue Period, "Casagemas in His Coffin", was completed later in 1901 when Picasso was sinking into a major depression. Picasso, normally an outgoing socializer, withdrew from his friends. Picasso's bout of depression was to last several years. Picasso's career had been promising before 1901 and early in that year he was making "a splash" in Paris. However, as he moved towards subject matter such as society's poor and outcast, and accented this with a cool, anguished mood with blue hues, the critics and the public turned away
Blue blue with a hint of green, which was ideal for painting skies. It was a favourite background colour of the German painter Albrecht Dürer. Another blue often used in the Middle Ages was called tournesol or folium. It was made from the plant Crozophora tinctoria, which grew in the south of France. It made a fine transparent blue valued in medieval manuscripts. Another common blue pigment was smalt, which was made by grinding blue cobalt glass into a fine powder. It made a deep violet blue similar to ultramarine, and was vivid in frescoes, but it lost some of its