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Painting 'Decadent Young Woman after the Dance'; lady in Victorian black dress, laying on green cushions, on cover of 'Colour Revolution, Victorian Art, Fashion & Design', by Ashmolean Museum.
Painting 'Decadent Young Woman after the Dance'; lady in Victorian black dress, laying on green cushions, on cover of 'Colour Revolution, Victorian Art, Fashion & Design', by Ashmolean Museum.
Painting 'Decadent Young Woman after the Dance'; lady in Victorian black dress, laying on green cushions, on cover of 'Colour Revolution, Victorian Art, Fashion & Design', by Ashmolean Museum.
Painting 'Decadent Young Woman after the Dance'; lady in Victorian black dress, laying on green cushions, on cover of 'Colour Revolution, Victorian Art, Fashion & Design', by Ashmolean Museum.
Painting 'Decadent Young Woman after the Dance'; lady in Victorian black dress, laying on green cushions, on cover of 'Colour Revolution, Victorian Art, Fashion & Design', by Ashmolean Museum.
Painting 'Decadent Young Woman after the Dance'; lady in Victorian black dress, laying on green cushions, on cover of 'Colour Revolution, Victorian Art, Fashion & Design', by Ashmolean Museum.

Colour Revolution

Victorian Art, Fashion & Design

Edited by Charlotte Ribeyrol
Edited by Matthew Winterbottom

£25.00

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  • 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 catalogue will dispel that perception, demonstrating how the industrial revolution transformed colour, and focus on the central role it played in art, culture and technology
  • As opposed to approaches favouring a long history of colour, the catalogue 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 colour and previous publications
  • Several essays in the catalogue 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
Full Description

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. 

About the Author

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.

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Specifications
Publisher
Ashmolean Museum
ISBN
9781910807576
Published
31st Aug 2023
Binding
Paperback / softback
Territory
World excluding Australasia
Size
280 mm x 220 mm
Pages
238 Pages
Illustrations
253 color, 20 b&w
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