So it seems

that the more expensive paints really do have something more vivid to their pigments. I enjoyed the forensic details of the pigments used by the monks who decorated The Book of Kells - iron-gall ink I have used, and I know something of woad. 

I was struck by a caption on one of the walls at the National Gallery of Ireland (European Art 1850-1950) that artists were liberated from their studios and colour mixing paraphernalia, to go out and paint the countryside, by two things: the railways, and metal tubes of paint. 

I also enjoyed the examples of the crucial role of the comma, in the titles of some of the pictures in the Vermeer exhibition. " Woman Scraping Parsnips, with a Child" by Nicholas Maes, "Two Women Making Music, with a Page" by Gerard ter Borch, or even "Woman Feeding a Parrot, with a Page" by Caspar Netscher.