Colour Revolution

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 colours. The Industrial Revolution had transformed the Victorians’ perception of colour and, over the course of the second half of the 19th century, it became the key signifier of modern life. Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion & Design charts the Victorians’ new attitudes to colour 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 colour. Rebelling against the bleakness of the industrial present, these figures learned from the sacred colours of the past, the sumptuous colours of the Middle East and Japan and looked forward towards the decadent colours that defined the end of the century. 

Author Biography

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.