Colouring In a 'Dark' Age: Histories of Colour in the Post-Classical World

Colouring In a 'Dark' Age: Histories of Colour in the Post-Classical World

This international conference revisits the varied roles of colour in the societies around the Eastern Mediterranean from Late Antiquity to c. 1000. Long neglected in scholarship until recently, colour is increasingly recognised for its importance to all aesthetic visual experiences: unfixed, universal, present yet intangible, it serves as unique vehicle for emotions and expression. Renewed scholarly attention has uncovered its roles in the economic, social, and religious lives of both the Classical period and the post-High Middle Ages but has ignored the period between them. This conference seeks to fill the lacuna and debunk the ‘Dark Age’ moniker in literal terms. It recalibrates scholarly attention onto a critical historical context where thinking about colour continued to evolve and innovate, exploring contexts as diverse as Christian salvation texts and Sassanid Iran.

Host or Publisher Julian Wood