Autumn 2026
THE POWER OF COLOUR
TUESDAYS
15 September – 17 November, 2026
Colour has extraordinary power to affect our emotions, our moods, and our thoughts. Which emotions are evoked, and which ideas stimulated, will change depending on cultural and historical context. In Europe, white signifiies purity, in China, death. In Europe, red signifies danger or passion, in India, divinity. Green can refer to nature or jealousy; purple to royalty or a threatening sky; orange can signify humility for Buddhists, but self-confidence for fashionistas. Even grey can have particular and varied meaning: by wearing grey in London, Benjamin Franklin signified his distaste for English embroidered popinjays. Degas used shades of grey for his amazing portrait of the Belleli family to signify the emotional poverty of their relationships. Interpretation all depends on cultural and historical context.
Colour is the resonant soul of painting, the quality by which it is distinguished and defined. During this course, we reach not just into the meanings of colour, but the means by which different colours have been achieved. We trace the evolution of pigments on a palette, as they gradually advanced through time and need – from the earth red and ochre pigments of cave painting through the ancient Egyptians’ first synthetic blue pigment, to the Chinese synthesis of brilliant vermilion out of the poisonous ingredients of mercury and sulphur, to the sharp yellows created from cadmium and the springlike greens alarmingly deriving from arsenic. Tyrian purple was so painstakingly made from the glands of a particular murex sea snail, that it was reserved for emperors. Ultramarine blue gained its preciousness, greater than that of gold, by coming to Europe all the way from Afghanistan, such that it was reserved for references to heaven, via the Virgin Mary. Through studying this evolution of pigmentary discovery, we find that whether we are studying the messages of Renaissance altarpieces, the balances of the Baroque, the agendas of Neoclassicism or the Nazarenes, the Pre-Raphaelites, the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists or Fauves, their work simply cannot be fully grasped without an understanding of both the pigments from which the works were made and the cultural context in which the colours appear.
Accordingly, we shall take one colour each week for ten weeks; we look at its multiple uses, meanings and emotional impacts as artists discovered its potential for powerful visual expression, and were in turn inspired by their own audacity in its deployment. Every hue in the long history of art carries a story of geography and geology, chemistry, engineering, technology, economics, culture, and the ambition of the patrons and the artists alike. Our emotional responses to colours are only enhanced and deepened by an understanding of these contexts.
Please join us for colourful evenings in the comfort of your own home. Perhaps you will be inspired, as was writer and diarist Anaïs Nin, to paint every room of your flat or house a different vivid colour!
SEEING RED
Tuesday 15 September
YELLOW FEVER
Tuesday 22 September
THE BLUES
Tuesday 29 September
GREEN WITH ENVY
Tuesday 6 October
DEEP PURPLE
Tuesday 13 October
FLAMING ORANGE
Tuesday 20 October
A STUDY IN BROWN
Tuesday 27 October
GREY MATTER
Tuesday 3 November
BLACK MAGIC
Tuesday 10 November
WHITE SPIRITS
Tuesday 17 November
‘The Power of Colour is a Zoom course (for which we offer support to access) which has been developed, designed and edited by Louise Friend and will be presented by Nicholas Friend. It is held on Tuesdays, beginning on Tuesday 15 September until Tuesday 17 November 2026 at 5pm.
If you book for the course but cannot manage a particular date, then be assured we will be sending recordings of sessions to all registered participants. Each session meets from 15 minutes before the advertised time of the lecture, and each lasts roughly one hour with 15 minutes discussion.
COST:
£500 for members, £600 non-members for ten sessions. Single sessions, £55 for members, £65 non- members. All sessions are limited to 21 participants to permit a vibrant after-lecture discussion session.
Please make your payment to Friend&Friend Ltd by bank transfer to our account with Metrobank, bank sort code 23-05-80, account number 13291721 or via PayPal to nicholas@inscapetours.co.uk, or credit/debit card by phone to Henrietta on 07940 719 397 who is available on Tuesdays or Thursdays between 2-5 pm.
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