Exploring the  sensual impact of colour - Brighton exhibition - video Dailymotion

SussexWorld

The Royal Pavilion, managed by Brighton & Hove Museums, will show its true colours this spring as the Regency palace opens a new immersive experience inviting visitors to explore the history, magic and meaning of colour.

Transcript

00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, great arts editor at Sussex Newspapers. Really lovely

00:06this morning to speak to Alexandra Loska. Now, Alexandra, you are, well, goodness, obsessed

00:11with colour, fascinated by colour, and you have curated a fascinating sounding exhibition

00:17on Brighton's Royal Pavilion, looking at colour, immersive colour, in that particular building.

00:24And why is colour so important to you? Because as I was saying, I think most of us will probably

00:28register colour, but won't think about its significance. Why is colour important, would

00:34you say? Well, colour is important because it's universal, it's what we all share. And

00:43the building I am the curator of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton is one of the most colourful

00:49historic interiors in this country, possibly the whole of Europe. And I've spent many years

00:55looking into why it looks the way it does, this sort of creamy, sugary, cakey, iced

01:02cake white on the outside. And then the, you know, the explosion of colour on the inside,

01:07really intensely, or highly saturated colour schemes, lots and lots of detail, every inch

01:14is decorated. And that, of course, has a lot to do with the time it was created, the early

01:2019th century, but also the style, what we used to call Orientalism, and now we're a

01:26bit more careful, but it's basically the influence and the inspiration from other countries,

01:31predominantly China, but also Egypt, and the Middle East.

01:36And it is the point that the colour that we're looking at has meaning, that we should be

01:40able to read something, tell something from the choice of colour, given that colour is

01:45almost always a choice, isn't it?

01:48Yes, it is. It was certainly George IV's choice, and we must not forget that this is

01:53court style. This was the most privileged person in Britain at the time. So he could

02:02go for anything. If there was a brand new pigment, such as chrome yellow, which had

02:09only just been made available commercially, really vibrant yellow, then, of course, he

02:15could just buy it, and he could decide to have an entire suite of rooms decorated in

02:23that. And if he wanted a really glossy, lacquer-like red, he could buy the best vermilion,

02:29and then he could give that vermilion a wonderful, translucent, cochineal glaze. So for

02:35him, there were no limits. And he really went to town with that at the Royal Pavilion.

02:41And the Royal Pavilion has a particular...

02:41Interesting you say red. Interesting you say red, because you have chosen red, and very

02:46cheekily asked you why you are in red today, given that colour is a choice. What is the

02:51meaning behind the red that you are wearing?

02:54Well, red, you know, I'm wearing something that has been made by a designer in Potsdam,

03:02and it's a really intense red, not too dissimilar to the music room of the Royal Pavilion. It

03:09fills me with confidence, and I think it looks good on camera. It has a psychological effect

03:18on me. For other people, it may be different colours, but certainly colour affects us.

03:23And that was also the idea behind the interiors of the Royal Pavilion, and other interiors.

03:28A lot of people came up with this idea of how does a room feel, depending on which colour

03:34you paint it. So, and of course, my countryman, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who published

03:40the biggest work on colour at the time in 1810, he said, well, for example, if you have

03:48a study where you read and write, why not paint that green, because it'll be calming,

03:53it'll be the right sort of colour for writing.

03:56So those ideas were emerging at the time, so I think it's a really important time in

04:03colour history and colour psychology, apart from lots of new pigments being available.

04:09It is that age of sense and sensibility, you know, focusing on people, on the human psychology

04:19of what does it mean when you step into a red room? What does it mean when you step

04:23into a powder blue room or a yellow room?

04:26It sounds a fascinating exhibition. I'm feeling guilty for not thinking about colour

04:30more on a day-to-day basis, and I promise you I will. So launching on International

04:34Colour Day on March 21st, running until October 19th, it's colour. Lovely to speak to you.

04:42It's been a great pleasure. Thank you.

Exploring the sensual impact of colour - Brighton exhibition

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