The Colours of the Past in Victorian England

Project Information

COPAST

Grant agreement ID: 655396

DOI 10.3030/655396

Project closed

EC signature date 5 March 2015

Start date 1 March 2016

End date 28 February 2018

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost € 195 454,80

EU contribution € 195 454,80

Coordinated by

THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
United Kingdom

Objective

This project entitled “The Colours of the Past in Victorian England” (COPAST) aims to analyse the reception of the chromatic material culture of Antiquity and the Middle Ages in the works of writers and painters from William Morris’s close circle. These politically-committed poets and artists looked towards the ideologically-charged colours of Hellenic and medieval arts and crafts, in order to retrieve and emulate supposedly more meaningful hues and dyeing processes which they believed modern science and economic imperatives had stripped of their symbolic and artistic value. The Victorian age (1837-1901) was indeed a turning point in terms of scientific discoveries of new chemical colours, including coal-tar based synthetic dyes. Dr. Ribeyrol will investigate ideological approaches to ancient polychromy in the context of the Greek and Gothic Revivals which affected industrialized England in the second half of the 19th century. Using close analysis of art works, literary texts and pigment recipe books, she will contrast these ancient hues with the new chemical aniline dyes which were mainly devised for the expanding textile industry. This innovative focus on chromatic materiality in the field of Victorian art history and literature will enable her to shed light on the artistic impact of this colour revolution which radically unsettled the way certain avant-garde Victorian writers and artists related to chromatic terminology and used traditional, organic pigments.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.

• engineering and technology › materials engineering › colors
• engineering and technology › materials engineering › synthetic dyes
• humanities › history and archaeology › history › medieval history
• humanities › history and archaeology › history › modern history
• humanities › arts › art history

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Programme(s)

• H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme
• H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility

Topic(s)

• MSCA-IF-2014-EF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF)

Call for proposal

H2020-MSCA-IF-2014

Funding Scheme

MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF

Coordinator

THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

• Net EU contribution: € 195 454,80
• Address: WELLINGTON SQUARE UNIVERSITY OFFICES ; OX1 2JD Oxford ; United Kingdom
• Region: South East (England) › Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire › Oxfordshire
• Activity type: Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
• Total cost: € 195 454,80