Royal Pavilion’s dazzling colour is the subject of researcher’s display

Royal Pavilion's dazzling colour is the subject of researcher's display. An additional feast for the eyes awaits visitors to the Royal Pavilion Brighton at a special display inspired by University of Sussex research that opens to the public today (15 June 2013). Alexandra Loske, who is completing a DPhil in Art History this summer, is the curator of Regency Colour and Beyond - 1785-1850 , a temporary display in the Royal Pavilion that draws on Alexandra's research into the 19^th-century fascination for colour as revealed in the famously spectacular décor of the Royal Pavilion Brighton. Objects on display include rare books about colour from the period, beautiful original wallpaper fragments from the Royal Pavilion and objects such as a 19^th-century artist's paint box and jars of pigments. Alexandra's research involved working closely with the Royal Pavilion's conservation team, specialist libraries and with scientists at the National Gallery, who analysed pigment samples taken from the Royal Pavilion. The period's renewed fascination for colour partly arose from the Romantic Movement's artistic focus on nature, beauty and the effects of colour, and was further fuelled by the invention of many synthetic pigments. This was reflected in fashionable tastes of the day, as demonstrated in practical guidance books on interior design and watercolour painting and the extensive use of novel pigments such as 18^th-century Prussian Blue and 19^th-century Chrome Yellow (examples of which can be seen in the Royal Pavilion).