Chromotope, The 19th century chromatic turn
Chromotope, The 19th century chromatic turn
William Burges (1827-1881) is best known to Victorian scholars as the ‘art-architect’ of the Gothic Revival movement. His work tapped into the Victorian obsession with reaching into the past to create visions for the present and he innovated by also drawing inspiration from the medieval material cultures of India, Japan and the Middle East.
The goal of this conference is to reinvigorate our current understanding of Burges as an isolated, somewhat eccentric figure towards a more holistic understanding of his career as indelibly influenced by friendship, collaboration and exchange. Papers will connect Burges to either an artist, architect, writer or religious figure in order to explore that individual relationship and its, often, wide reaching effect.
Renewed interest in Burges was catalysed by the 2016 redisplay and subsequent technical analysis of his Great Bookcase, the centrepiece of the Medieval Court at the International Exhibition of 1862, itself a watershed moment for Victorian historicism, in the Deedee Wigmore Gallery at the Ashmolean Museum. In her new book, William Burges’s Great Bookcase and the Victorian Colour Revolution (YUP 2023) Charlotte Ribeyrol has untangled the artistic, literary and historical networks at play in the Great Bookcase’s complex and intriguing iconography. This conference builds on that methodology to gain a fuller understanding of Burges’ output by connecting him to key figures across the spheres of Victorian culture.
This conference also precedes a major exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum in September 2023, ‘Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion and Design’ which will explore the theme of Victorian colour and highlights the Great Bookcase as a key chromophilic object.
