Color and the Rise of Modern Art

In April of 1874, a group of young, avant-garde artists, who we now call the Impressionists, exhibited together for the first time. Because their work is so familiar to us today, it is not always easy to understand what made them so radical in their time. But make no mistake, radical they were.

While the challenge they presented to the arts in France was multi-faceted—institutional, social, economic, among others—this talk will discuss their advances specifically in the realm of color. Drawing on new developments in color theory, color perception, and even the industrial manufacture of color pigments, their daring color palettes signal a shift to a new way of seeing, fundamentally transforming painting and bringing arts into the modern world.

Dr. Janet G. Stephens is Assistant Professor of Art at Georgia Gwinnett College. She received her Ph.D. in Art History from UCLA in 2013 with an emphasis on Latin American Art of the 16th-19th centuries. She previously taught at Georgia State University and has received fellowships from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., among others.

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