Science and sensibility: Chemistry and the aesthetics of color in the early nineteenth century

Abstract

Chemistry is an essential but neglected source of scientific rationales for artistic color theory in Britain between 1830 and 1850. This article compares and contrasts the work of two chemists who were also aestheticians: George Field (1777–1854) and Michel Eugene Chevreul (1786–1889). Their color theories are placed in the context of their work in two streams of chemical science then current: a speculative chemical philosophy of natural powers and empirical experimental analysis. In mid-century, as design theorists such as Owen Jones (1809–1874) and Richard Redgrave (1804–1888) attempted to place artistic color theory on an objective basis, they combined the results of these two approaches and applied them to decorative coloring. This article argues that this abstract, arbitrary approach to color then passed to Victorian fine art by way of decorative painting, pattern design, and book illustration. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.