Orders, materials, and terminologies of colours in the 18th century

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In fine arts, colour has always been, and still is, a central and indispensable tool in all creative and producing process. Moreover, ordering colours in systems, charts, inventories, and lists has provided a bridge between the practical knowledge in arts, crafts, and trade on the one hand, and the systematic/ theoretical investigation and categorization in natural philosophy, natural history, and art theory on the other. In the period of Enlightenment, with its effort of rendering arcane knowledge visible, painted colour systems, colour charts, and colour standards were produced in great variety and steeply increasing numbers. They formed a link of theoretical and practical approaches and a place of interdisciplinary exchange – a trading zone (Long 2011) between theoretical systematics and practice-related contexts. The proposed project focuses on the exploration of this constellation. It aims at examining how hues and colours materials were conceptualized, and how order was created and visualized. It will pursue a thorough and comprehensive analysis of historical colour terms, colour materials (like pigments and dyestuffs), and colour orders, and on that fundament it will analyze in a systematic way the connexions of colour theory, colour systems, colour craftmanship, artists’ practice and art theory. As a result, the project is expected to gain specific insights into the materiality of colours and the related terminology of colorants and hues. It will also provide a more general understanding of the interaction of practical, theoretical, and academic knowledge. In addition to the orders of techne, the main focus of the research project is particularly on the modes of appearance and, via the central requirement of communication, also on its narratives.