Colour: a visual history

Abstract

"In 1704, the scientist Isaac Newton published Opticks, the result of many years of researching light and colour. By splitting white light, Newton identified the visible range of colours, or the rainbow spectrum. In Opticks, he built a colour system around his findings, and he visualised this system in a circular shape, making it one of the first printed colour wheels. The influence of Newton and his followers, combined with the invention of many new pigments as well as watercolours in moist cake form, had made painting with colour an exciting occupation not just for serious artists but also for a much wider audience. The colour revolution had begun."

Contents

Unraveling the rainbow : the eighteenth-century colour revolution -- Romantic ideas and new technologies : the early nineteenth century -- Industrialism to impressionism : the later nineteenth century -- Colour for colour's sake : the radical early twentieth century -- Colour into the future : the wheels keep on spinning.