Ultramarine smalt is the load-bearing colour — every gold leaf is sized against it, never floated over white.
Wheat, star and ribbon resolve into a single composition only when the viewer steps back six paces.
Beige is what gold becomes on beige; against ultramarine the leaf reads as metal, not paint.
Each panel is fired for seventy years of weather; nothing is printed, nothing is veneered, nothing is provisional.