• Britain's industrial age is often perceived through a black-and-white filter as the funereal age of coal pollution and bleak working class slums. This catalog will dispel that perception, demonstrating how the industrial revolution transformed color, and focus on the central role it played in art, culture and technology
• As opposed to approaches favoring a long history of color, the catalog focuses on the second half of the 19th century and argues that this was a crucial chromatic turn, which has been significantly ignored by prominent historians of color and previous publications
• Several essays in the catalog offer new research into key chromatic events of the period including the 1862 International Exhibition
• Accompanies an exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum from 21 September 2023 to 18 February 2024
Contrary to the monochrome vision of Queen Victoria’s mourning dresses and the coal-polluted streets of Charles Dickens’ London, Victorian Britain was, in fact, a period of new and vivid colors. The Industrial Revolution had transformed the Victorians’ perception of color and, over the course of the second half of the 19th century, it became the key signifier of modern life. The Colour Revolution; Victorian Fashion, Art & Design charts the Victorians’ new attitudes to color through a multi-disciplinary exploration of culture, technology, art and literature. The catalogue explores key ‘chromatic’ moments that inspired Victorian artists and writers to think anew about the materiality of color. Rebelling against the bleakness of the industrial present, these figures learned from the sacred colors of the past, the sumptuous colors of the Middle East and Japan and looked forward towards the decadent colors that defined the end of the century.
Arvustused
"This is a story of the interlocking spheres of science and art, technology, trade, travel, fashion, taste and ideas." - The Decorative Arts Society "This is a multi-author volume, bringing an impressive range of expertise to the subject... Its excellent illustrations include furniture, ceramics, jewellery, dress, books and colour charts, as well as paintings, sculpture and photographs, and a brief object list provides a record of the exhibition." - The Decorative Arts Society Newsletter
Foreword 7
Acknowledgements 9
Preface 11
Elizabeth Prettejohn
1. glowing colour
The Age of Colour: Victorian Britain (18371901) 17
Matthew Winterbottom and Charlotte Ribeyrol
Colour in Ruskins Teachings 31
Colin Harrison
Turners Paintings of Venice 37
Colin Harrison
The Gothic school of colour: Reviving the Hues of the Middle Ages 43
Charlotte Ribeyrol
Unweaving the Rainbow: Natures Colours in Art, 59
Fashion and Design
Madeline Hewitson
Pretty Plant Photographers or Pioneers? Anna Atkins and 71
Sarah Angelina Acland
Lena Fritsch
Object in Focus: Harry Emanuel, Hummingbird Necklace (1865) 78
Madeline Hewitson
2. colour for all
The Triumph of Colour: the Synthetic Colour Revolution 87
Matthew Winterbottom
More brilliant tints than fancy could conceive Exhibiting 103
Colour: The 1862 International Exhibition
Matthew Winterbottom
Object in Focus: The Great Bookcase: Between Medieval and 116
Victorian Colour
Tea Ghigo
Surface Matters: Skin Colour, Race and Materiality 123
Madeline Hewitson
Wedding archaeology with art: the Rediscovery of 131
Ancient Polychromy
Charlotte Ribeyrol
Journeys for Colour: Artist-Travellers and British Orientalism 143
Madeline Hewitson
Object in Focus: Owen Jones, The History of Joseph and His 156
Brethren (1865)
Madeline Hewitson
The gorgeous contributions of India: Sourcing Colour 163
in the British Empire
Matthew Winterbottom and Madeline Hewitson
3. colour for colours sake
Colour for Colours Sake 173
Stefano Evangelista and Charlotte Ribeyrol
Object in Focus: James McNeill Whistler, Nocturne: Blue and 192
Gold, St Marks Venice (1880)
Madeline Hewitson
Queer Colours 197
Stefano Evangelista
Object in Focus: Fin-de-siècle Tanagras 204
Charlotte Ribeyrol
Object in Focus: Japanese Board Game 212
Clare Pollard
The Electric Fairy: Loïe Fuller (18621928) 217
Matthew Winterbottom
Object List 222
Notes 228
Bibliography 232
Image Credits 238
Charlotte Ribeyrol is the Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded project, Chromotope: the 19th century chromatic turn and an Associate Professor in 19th century British Literature at Sorbonne Université in Paris. She is also the co-curator of the exhibition Colour Revolution: Victorian Fashion, Art & Design. Matthew Winterbottom is Curator of Western Art Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. He is the co-curator of Colour Revolution: Victorian Fashion, Art & Design.
