The Texture of Capitalism:Industrial Oil Colours and the Politics of Paint in the Work of G.F. Watts

Abstract

This article considers how the industrial production of artists’ colours, or oil \npaint, in the second half of the nineteenth century affected artistic practice. \nThe transformation of paint-making from an artisanal craft into an industrial \nprocess did not change the hue or saturation of colours, but radically altered \ntheir texture. It was through the materiality of their paints that artists \nbecame aware of the impact industrialisation had upon their practice; texture \nitself became a flashpoint for debates about the effect of capitalist modernity \non painting in particular and society more broadly. This article examines how \nthe painter George Frederic Watts mobilised the texture of his paints to \narticulate an anti-capitalist, moral aesthetic at a time when mass production \nmade oil colours homogenously buttery and smooth, as well as fugitive and \nunstable.

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