How many colours in the rainbow?

 Talk by Dr Susan Kay-Williams FRSA FSDC FCIM

Talk in partnership with the Art Society of Sidmouth

Aristotle thought there were three colours in the rainbow, Newton identified seven colours of light through the prism but look at paintings by Constable and there can be any number of changing colours in the rainbow.

Following Newton, the rainbow became a starting point for people thinking about colour and to theorise about colour. This led to a range of colour theories that have highlighted different numbers of colours from seven to thousands. To start with the colour theories were often linked to practical applications. Given the interest in exploring the insect world in the eighteenth century , it is not surprising that entomologists played a leading role in this development, for example through the work of Moses Harris and later Warner’s Nomenclature, the  book Charles Darwin took to the Galapagos Islands so that he could describe the flora and fauna in colour terms that would be understood back home.

This highly illustrated lecture looks at some of these colour theories from the seventeenth century through to the twentieth and how they were adopted and applied. How Goethe’s writing on colour influenced JMW Turner, how Michel Chevreul’s work was not only applied to textiles but influenced the Impressionist painters especially van Gogh. How colour theory has been applied not only to paintings but to industrial issues such as productivity and recuperation through the work of Faber Birren in the twentieth century. It shows how the Bauhaus movement had a seminal interest in colour and how the work of American Alfred Munsell’s work came to underpin colour teaching in American schools in the first half of the twentieth century but how some of the colour charts he developed are still in use for assessing teeth, soil and beer! This lecture will appeal to anyone with an interest in colour

Dr Susan Kay-Williams was the Chief Executive of the Royal School of Needlework (RSN) for seventeen years from 2007 to 2024 during which time the RSN developed a Degree programme, Tutor programme and many new teaching initiatives including online and international, and a programme for schools called Stitch a Selfie. She is a Fellow of the Society of Dyers and Colourists and was their President for 2024-25. Since retirement she has been editing an online course on the History of Embroidery for the RSN, developing a project for the V&A, lecturing internationally and is undertaking research for a new book. Her publications include The Story of Colour in Textiles (Bloomsbury 2013) and An Unbroken Thread 150 years of the RSN (ACC Art Books, 2022 and 2024).