Charlotte Ribeyrol on ‘the Colourful Literary Imagination of William Burges’ for the Colour Studies Working Group

Our PI Charlotte Ribeyrol will be discussing 'The Colourful Literary Imagination of the Victorian architect William Burges (1827-1881)' at the next Colour Studies Working Group session on Wednesday July 9th 12PM EDT, details below: Wednesday, July 9, 2025, 12:00 - 1:30 pm EDT  (4:00 - 5:30 pm UTC, 5:00 - 6:30 pm BST) Following the recent ‘material turn’ in the humanities, chromatic materiality is being discussed by an ever-increasing number of disciplines. Literary studies, however, have so far lagged behind. Indeed, with the exception of the illustrated text, the difficulty of reading colour is that it is not there, the black-and-white page necessarily invoking it by absence or abstraction. One of the objectives of the CHROMOTOPE team has been to unveil the key role played by the transformations of chromatic matter in 19th-century art and literature, drawing on William Burges’s Great Bookcase in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford) as a case study. This presentation will discuss the outcome of this investigation into the colourful ‘embodied poems’ of the Victorian architect whose imagination was fuelled by the ‘wondrous stories’ of bygone ages, whether Pagan or Christian. In advance of her talk, Charlotte Ribeyrol has shared 2 items. The second chapter of her book, William Burges’s Great Bookcase & the Victorian Colour Revolution, as well as an essay on the verdeurs of Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray. These can be accessed through the CHSTM website. Organizer: Elizabeth Savage The Colour Studies Working Group, brings together scholars in all disciplines who are engaged in colour-inclusive research , and those who want to explore colour studies to benefit their work. We hold monthly meetings and welcome you suggestions for future topics.