This article considers how the industrial production of artists' colours, or oil paint, in the second half of the nineteenth century affected artistic practice. The transformation of paint-making from an artisanal craft into an industrial process did not change the hue or saturation of colours, but radically altered their texture. It was through the materiality of their paints that artists became aware of the impact industrialisation had upon their practice; texture itself became a flashpoint for debates about the effect of capitalist modernity on painting in particular and society more broadly. This article examines how the painter George Frederic Watts mobilised the texture of his paints to articulate an anti-capitalist, moral aesthetic at a time when mass production made oil colours homogenously buttery and smooth, as well as fugitive and unstable.
This essay examines the rivalry between cosmetics firms Max Factor and Elizabeth Arden in 1930s Hollywood as they competed for dominance in the field of Technicolor cosmetics. This rivalry, dubbed "the Hollywood Powder Puff War" by the press, was far from a trivial skirmish but is discussed here as the site where labor practices, racial constructions, and female identity were contested. Against a backdrop of industrial action in studio makeup departments, I argue that Factor's Technicolor cosmetics line ultimately triumphed over Arden's by reinforcing whiteness as a beauty ideal during the transition from black-and-white to color film.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.