‘The Birds and the Bees: Nature in Victorian Colour’ with Dr Maddie Hewitson

On the 25th May, Dr Maddie Hewitson of the Ashmolean Museum's Western Art Print Room gave a talk to St Anne's College, Oxford's Plumer Society.
Following John Ruskin’s dictum to ‘go to nature in all singleness of heart… rejecting nothing, selecting nothing and scorning nothing’, many Victorian artists were drawn outdoors to revel in the offerings of the natural world. Against the backdrop of Charles Darwin’s defining publication On the Origin of Species (1859), the plumage of a bird, the iridescent shimmer of a fish scale and the delicate hue of butterfly wings took on a new, exciting significance for artists.
These representations of the natural world will be analysed from the perspective of colour and examine how artists learned from the animal and plant kingdoms as they developed their palettes. This research is part of a forthcoming exhibition at the museum, ‘Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion & Design’ and many of the drawings discussed will feature in the show.