This major volume aims to re-colour the European world of dress, c.1300-1800. New dyes created one of the most important visual experiences of the period, yet their story has been side-lined by a focus on visual experiences shaped by the high arts. Meanwhile, theatrical productions and period films still abound with broad assumptions about the growing dominance of black clothing for elites during the period, while ordinary people are imagined having worn coarse greys and bleached garments. This volume presents clear evidence that even the clothing of the middle classes could be much more expensive than paintings, and that coloured clothing and accessories were ubiquitous across society.
Contributors shed new light on the economic, environmental, and cultural dimensions of colour in dress. The range of dyes expanded considerably in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, drawing on Asian and Mediterranean knowledge, new collections of recipes, and the greater diversity of plants available through New World trade. Working creatively with organic plant, animal, and mineral materials to make colours involved considerable knowledge, pleasure and skill. The creation of colour through dyes thus reveals a whole range of global agricultural and craft technologies that can inspire future material worlds and transforms our understanding of Europe´s cultural heritage.
Bringing together an international cast of scholars from a range of disciplines, this highly illustrated book traces the history of colour through its relationship with clothing in Europe over four centuries in the pre-modern period. A Revolution in Colour reveals how, during this era, dyes spurred on aesthetic experiment, new modes of empirical observation and an intensification of globally interconnected trade. The book demonstrates that merchants and craftspeople generated much of the social value for new aesthetic possibilities through dye tones, successfully arguing that this set off a 'revolution in colour' that intertwined with the first age of globalization and consumerism.
Whilst providing clear evidence that even dress obtained by middling people in Europe could be much more expensive than paintings, A Revolution in Colour also shows that vibrant coloured clothing and accessories based on complex chemical experiments were ubiquitous. A broad range of natural dyes made for exciting and highly successful products by creating novelty and new emotional experiences for the masses.
