The Cultural Assumptions and Ideological Implications that Guided the Uses of Colour and Colour Theory in the mid-19th Century

Dr. Brett proposed an innovative research project in which he planned to treat “visual culture as a single object of study” as opposed to a cross-disciplinary study. He sought to use a mid-19th century Kashmir shawl in the ROM’s collection as “a lens through which to view debates about colour within 19th century culture,” investigating “the cultural assumptions and ideological implications that guided the uses of colour and colour-theory in the mid-19th century.” In doing so, he combined five different aspects of visual culture of the period which are related but had not previously been researched collectively: 19th century painting and colour science theories; the “South Kensington” theory of pattern and the “carpet paradigm” in painting; orientalism in painting and surface pattern design; the popularity of Kashmir shawls, orientalism in dress and textile design, innovations in dyes; and the cultural debate surrounding colour in architecture. These aspects, taken together, comprise what he referred to as the “politics of colour” in the mid-19th century which conflated the Orient with antiquity and Europe with modernity, with colour becoming “a medium for defining modernity.”