What is color? It is the visual perception of the electromagnetic radiation within the visible spectrum; it is a complex physical phenomenon that depends on the quantity and quality of light falling on an object and the way in which the light reflected or transmitted by an object is collected by our eyes and processed by our brain. Color is the result of the interaction between a light source, an object and an observer. But color also has a psychological effect, influencing emotions and moods, as shown by Chromotherapia, at the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici (an institution founded in 1666 by King Louis XIV).
Indeed, Chromotherapia has the effect of stimulating emotions precisely by enveloping the observer in atmospheres that vary from lemon yellow to bright red, from vivid orange to electric blue (“the vitamin-rich programme of the exhibition”, according to curators Maurizio Cattelan and Sam Stourdzé), but it is also and above all an invitation to retrace the history of color photography in the 20th century through the eyes of 19 artists.
Color photography has often been underestimated in the past, although it has helped to give photography not only a documentary dimension (an approach already followed, for example, by Pictorialism), but also to explore and confound itself with Pop, Surrealism, Bling, Kitsch and Baroque. It is also thanks to color that photographers extended their creativity beyond the already considerable possibilities offered by black and white and the old techniques.
The first attempts at color photography date back to the mid-19th century, with James Clerk Maxwell three-color method (a colored ribbon as a subject), Louis Ducos du Hauron and Charles Cros.
The first industrial photographic color process was introduced in 1907, created by the Lumière brothers: it was the autochrome (based on potato starch). From then on, chromatic experimentation became central to photographic research, and color became a narrative element, with a transversal presence in all image genres.
But we ‘perceive’ color as something inherent in the world around us: the yellow of the sun, the blue of the sky, the infinite colors of flowers, the green of forests. Each color, then, multiplies in a thousand streams of gradations and variations. And because our very individual perception is involved, it is also, and above all, a ‘sensation’, that is interpreted differently by each of us. What is certain is that it is a strong sensation, which leads us to an attentive and intensely chromatic vision of the world.
It is certainly an unusual vision that we find as a common thread in the images in the exhibition: the desire to show things differently, thanks to the emotion that color (or the feeling of it) can convey.
This can be perceived, for example, in the images by Martin Parr, who records contemporary paradoxes, while ironically suggesting the bulimia of the modern world. Or in the work by Walter Chandoha, nicknamed ‘The Cat Photographer’, who captures a human quality in the cats he photographs against saturated backgrounds; William Wegman’s tender immortalisation of his dogs; or Arnold Odermatt’s documentation of road accidents, which combines drama and poetry.
The exhibition tour, in seven chapters, transports us into colorful worlds that engage the mind:
EARLY BIRDS
Erwin Blumenfeld, Harold Edgerton, Madame Yevonde and Toiletpaper
RAINING CATS AND DOGS
Walter Chandoha, William Wegman, Toiletpaper
GLOSSY
Guy Bourdin, Hiro, Toiletpaper
FEMME FATALE
Adrienne Raquel, Miles Aldridge, Juno Calypso, Alex Prager, Toiletpaper
STRANGER THINGS
Arnold Odermatt, Sandy Skoglund
FOODORAMA
Martin Parr, Toiletpaper
MAKE A FACE
Hassan Hajjaj, Ouka Leele, Pierre et Gilles, Ruth Ginika Ossai, Toiletpaper
Paola Sammartano
The Book
To ‘continue’ the cure after visiting the exhibition, there is ‘Chromotherapia. Feel-Good Color Photography / Chromotherapia La Photographie couleur qui vous fait du bien’, which, takes us on a journey into vibrant and acidic worlds. Edited by Maurizio Cattelan and Sam Stourdzé, it is published by Damiani Books.
CHROMOTHERAPIA
Feel-Good Color Photography
From February 28 to June 9, 2025
French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici
Viale della Trinità dei Monti, 1
00187 Rome
Italy
https://www.villamedici.it/
