14. Colour on Trial

During the nineteenth century, the production and supply of pigments underwent immense changes on a scale never seen before. The discovery of new, synthetic, inorganic pigments based on chrome, cobalt, cadmium, arsenic and zinc enlarged the supply of mineral pigments. The rapid expansion of coal tar dyes followed in the second half of the century after the young chemist William Perkin accidentally discovered a purple synthetic aniline dye in 1856 from coal tar chemicals, which was named after the French for the mallow wildflower, mauve (on the naming of the new anilines in relation to a longer history of dyes, see Marie-Anne Sarda’s chapter in this volume). Following the increase in the development of new colourants, the coal tar dye industry explored new sales markets in fields including fashion, paper and printing, interior design and food, hugely impacting the visual world of consumers. Art and culture were caught up in a ‘colour revolution’.