103083/Z/13/Z: New Light on Old Art: The Science of Seeing in Colour

Project Summary:Support is requested for an interactive mixed-media exhibit which will form a key part of a ground-breaking exhibition on 'Colour', to be shown at the National Gallery from June to September 2014. This will bring together the National Gallery's pioneering scientific research and outstanding works of art with new research on human visual perception, to explore the material history of colour and enhance public understanding both of visual art and the science of colour perception. The exhibition wi ll take the public through a 700-year history of colouring materials and techniques used by Western artists and culminate in the proposed interactive exhibit, featuring spectrally tuneable LED-based lighting technology and artworks installed in a dedicated space. Digital presentations, interactive demonstrations and a mass experiment will elucidate fundamental phenomena of human colour vision, and how these underpin the appreciation and interpretation of visual art. New scientific findings on th e limits of human perceptual constancies under artificial and natural illuminations will be presented, and further advanced by the results of the mass experiment. The digital media content will also be shown on the National Gallery's website as a long-term legacy of the project, and the exhibition will be accompanied by a wide-ranging education programme. The digital media and interactive demonstrations and perceptual experiments will be produced as a collaboration between the National Gallery, scientists at Newcastle University and the University of East Anglia, and lighting engineers from the Catalonia Institute for Energy Research (IREC), Barcelona.

Grant Holder:Rickie Burman (PA) & Dr Ashok Roy

Organisation:National Gallery

Financial Year:2013/2014