"A great deal of thought ... though it consist of nothing but flowers"
March 9, 2022 4:19 PM   Subscribe

Mary Gartside (1808), An Essay on a New Theory of Colour: "Suppose, for the sake of illustration, that each blot is a group of flowers ... exhibiting the effect produced by arranging them according to the theory ... I would place my principal flower at No. 1" [more: yellow; orange; scarlet; green; blue; crimson; violet]. Like Georgiana Houghton and Emily Noyes Vanderpoel, Gartside has been recognized for working in an era of realist / representational art while anticipating later abstract art, as noted in Alexandra Loske's "Mary Gartside: A female colour theorist in Georgian England" [PDF, see "Recent Critical Reception"]. Some plates from Gartside's other 1808 book on color / composition are here, here, here, and in this short video. See also: Mary Moser's "Spring" (c. 1780; it is "very likely" she knew Gartside); and still life flower paintings in general from C16, C17, C18, C19, and C20.
posted by Wobbuffet (2 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
Thank you so much for posting this! I'm busy now but it will be great to explore later.
posted by mumimor at 2:53 AM on March 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


Wow. Looks better than both Goethe and Newton.
posted by No Robots at 7:58 AM on March 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


« Older A final message from the Alpha Dog   |   Marginalia Search - Serendipity Engineering Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments