Fascinating enlightenments unfold within your telling, albeit ever so sad. Whilst I'd known how precious the dye was, I had NOT known the TRUE COST...and I'm very grateful that you've made this little known and seemingly obscure history come to light. I cannot wait for your other histories on specific colours employed...!!! Thank you very much 💖. Such fine work, thank you!
Both saddening and fascinating, this video provided an unexpected lesson in the history of art that has completely changed the way I view art and has made me want to learn more.
Thank you for adding this crucial and -- too often -- ignored aspect of the history of art and culture. I hope the National Gallery brings more such stories and history to the channel so that we can get a fuller view of what the art means and the ways and costs of its creation.
Wow, this is so sad. I had no idea there were Indigo plantations in Jamaica. Great video, thanks Kendall. I feel overwhelmed with sadness but I now know my people's history is more intertwined with Western fine art, than I thought...
This video really touched me deeply. There are probably dozens of unsung heroes behind a master painting, even in just this one pigment of one painting. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
This is such a powerful, important, educational video. Please, please continue to share the history. I will never look at a painting depicting someone from that time period wearing blue clothing the same again.
Great job Kendall. Nothing can be changed until it is faced. As a lover of art, and a follower of Christ, my understanding is that our whole world is one of ever present fallenness. The sugar we consume. The petrol in our fuel tank. The lack of opportunity, and the unfair advantage. The inexpensive garments we buy and too soon discard. Sin touches everything, and we all benefit from it in some way. Your Gallery depicts the lamb of God, who came to take away the sins of the world, including the sins inherent and explicit in the indigo trade. And mine. Walk humbly, show mercy, act justly. Praise Him. Thanks again.
Thank you so much for this history. I will look upon paintings of “the masters” in a new way … I love what the host said about connecting to the paintings differently now. Even though people of color are rarely represented in these paintings, we are there. Absolutely there.
Wow, thank you so much for this educational and important work! All that beauty has a dark side to it and I am glad that through ladies like Kendall the story of the people behind it are heard and will live on. I think she is doing a wonderful job to connect with her ancestors and bring on their legacy.
seeing so many commenters entirely missing the point of this video. this isn't a 'bet you didn't know this' clickbait video, this is real and brutal history, much of which is present and ongoing
Thanks for a wonderful, alarming wake-up call about the cost of art in our world’s history. This is an extremely important perspective and I look forward to learning much more. I will never see these paintings the same again. More, please! Thanks again for educating us. 🙏
education and knowledge is fun. There is SO MUCH MORE to paintings than just their appearances. the paintings and even the colors and dyes make statements of life and culture to us! A story to tell
Extraordinary. Brings an entire other, critically important, level of understanding about paintings to light. Thank you. Please keep posting as you continue your research.
I love art, so working with it, and watching videos about art, painting, or mystery about colors, like this video, makes part of the things I just love to do. I always get very impressed with things that can cause me emotional feelings, and actually, when I am watching this video, I get goosebumps with the outstanding explanation of this lady Kendall. This is quite an emotional and very impressive video, about the blue indigo color. Thank you for such a remarkable job.
What an amazing video!! Thank you National Gallery and Kendall Francis for such great work, loved to learn the true story behind indigo and its slavery past. Please do more content like this, is very important we understand more about slavery , and specially in Art History,
History revealed in the story of a color. It added so much to my understanding of the beauty and real cost behind art. Art which anyone can walk about and see for ‘free’.
An excellent and highly informative film. Thank you so much for posting it. I wish you all the best for your future career and research. This grim world needs more people like you to tel the stories that might one day just alter humanity for the better.
on other hand, the way they obtained those plants and dyes, also meant that some natives or people who lived near those resources probably had to do some hard work to get the plant for the British or the Europeans, for the paintings
Thank you. Love indigo, and blue colors in general. But never thought about the details of their origin in this aspect. Absolutely unexpected approach to the history of arts. And an extremely interesting story of the material used! Stories about other dyes, materials presented in connection with the art pieces would be impatiently expected.
My sincere thanks to Ms. Francis and everyone who made this video. It’s both fascinating and horrifying to learn about the two paintings she highlights.
When I pass cemeteries, I often think that those I do not even know, have made my life as it is today, by what they contributed. This video tells a specific view of this idea and this idea penetrates all of our lives in every way. Countless lives have lived and worked and suffered so that we can live today. It is so intertwined, so many phases that people have been through. I am very glad that in USA slavery was ended. And hoping there is little slavery left in the world now. And I pray we, in the whole world, are not all going to fall slaves now to a world that wants to control everything from the government and take from us our freedoms and resources.
Wonderful film. Kendall brings a whole new textural layer to art history. I wouldn’t have given the Zoffany portrait more than a passing glance otherwise.
Thank you for adding your research...I'm companion watching a US based discussion on Indigo in South Carolina by their historical society. We become aware of history to not repeat the atrocities of the past while appreciating the artifacts left for us to study...
Thank you for this point of view. Part of my ancestors came from West Africa, it was heartbreaking to learn about this part of art history. Thanks to Ms. Francis and team!
Fantastic! Made me quite emotional. More information like this being presented with the artwork itself enhances the experience. I would also love to see a series of these on the history, social impact, and environmental impact of the creation of colour.
Props to Ms. Francis for what she's obviously accomplished and for illuminating the lesser-known side of art. I look forward to reading a book by her someday. In the meantime, if you enjoyed this clip you should read a book by Victoria Finlay called "Color: A History of the Palette." She's an investigative reporter and went in depth with her research, traveling the world over in search of the history of color. She looks at color from the perspectives of art history, chemistry, cultural anthropology, biology and politics throughout history. I lost count how many people I've gifted this book to. It should be required reading for any art history major or enthusiast.
This has made me think about who and how my clothes have been made. I'm not the owner of a cobalt mine or the heiress of a sweatshop line, but I'm benefitting from a system that exploits others.
Thank you, Kendall, for such a lovely and instructive video! I work with pigments ( as an iconographer) and it is always nice to learn more about where they come from and their history.
Thank you for this: lovely to watch & listen to (thanks for subtitles: due to my brain injury I often read more than listen/hear) & learn whilst having my lunch today. Perfect length for me too!
What other countries purchase indigo? The Middle East for instance with the dying of that culture clothing as well as Art work. This is all interesting and informative.
Unfortunately, in many places in the US, many Republicans would want to ban this from being taught. How tragically sad is it that a dye and what it communicated about its owners/buyers motivated people to do such horrific evils? We're taught to look at these paintings and marvel at their beauty and their "goodness."
please keep these kinds of investigations going. if we humans are to progress, we *must* accept that all art is political. that the concept of "art for art's sake" is a construct. a fallacy. and that art is a reflection of the socio-economic system within which it is created.
Ok, so, I got it. the color blue...the resource or plant alone was expensive or hard to get and complicated to produce...so back then in those days that MUST had been a sign of wealth. So the color wasn't just chosen for a painting or portrait to be beautiful. It was chosen perhaps ALSO to demonstrate that a person or thing was of "upper class". How am I doing? This was an interesting video. So back then, the color blue for paints and dyes was a sign of wealth and "statement" of the persons identity or class or finances or power....
This is an excellent presentation! The information is fascinating - I've done a fair bit of research on natural dyes and never read that the indigo process has toxic stages, only that it requires "good ventilation". Ms. Francis is a superior presenter. Please use her again!
Thank you for the this beautiful & concise video. The information, so beautifully presented, gives a new nuance to a visit to any art gallery, palace or country house. How appropriate that through this one colour, indigo blue, we can almost reach out & touch this saddest of human stories. I had not heard before that the slave traders sort out out people who were skilled in indigo & rice production. The history of Haiti is one of the saddest as the country, & its people, is the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, also one of the most corrupt.
Absolutely heartbreaking and enlightening at the same time. Thank you for this brilliant and important film, I don’t think I have ever seen a better presentation on this topic in such a short format. Hope you continue your research and spread this information to many more! Many greetings from Sweden
What about woad, grown in England and providing a blue dye for cloth. This interesting talk states that only indigo could produce blue. Were not policemen's uniforms once dyed with woad?
Kendall do you have a website where I can learn more about your research ? How you learned about these things is interesting, please consider writing a book !!
Kendall Francis’ presentation was extremely well done & very interesting! I learned so much & yet I was also very upset to see yet another tie to slavery’s brutally!
Fascinating enlightenments unfold within your telling, albeit ever so sad. Whilst I'd known how precious the dye was, I had NOT known the TRUE COST...and I'm very grateful that you've made this little known and seemingly obscure history come to light. I cannot wait for your other histories on specific colours employed...!!! Thank you very much 💖. Such fine work, thank you!
Both saddening and fascinating, this video provided an unexpected lesson in the history of art that has completely changed the way I view art and has made me want to learn more.
Such a beautiful voice!!! I can listen to the young lady narrator for hours! Thank you!
Thanks for listening
Thank you for adding this crucial and -- too often -- ignored aspect of the history of art and culture.
I hope the National Gallery brings more such stories and history to the channel so that we can get a fuller view of what the art means and the ways and costs of its creation.
This info should be put in the museums next to the paintings.
Outstanding explanation, just love to hear Kendall explaining it to us.
Fascinating and horrific. Thank you for the history lesson, you absolutely had me looking at that painting in a completely different light.
Wow, this is so sad. I had no idea there were Indigo plantations in Jamaica. Great video, thanks Kendall. I feel overwhelmed with sadness but I now know my people's history is more intertwined with Western fine art, than I thought...
This video really touched me deeply. There are probably dozens of unsung heroes behind a master painting, even in just this one pigment of one painting. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
This is such a powerful, important, educational video. Please, please continue to share the history. I will never look at a painting depicting someone from that time period wearing blue clothing the same again.
Great job Kendall. Nothing can be changed until it is faced. As a lover of art, and a follower of Christ, my understanding is that our whole world is one of ever present fallenness. The sugar we consume. The petrol in our fuel tank. The lack of opportunity, and the unfair advantage. The inexpensive garments we buy and too soon discard. Sin touches everything, and we all benefit from it in some way. Your Gallery depicts the lamb of God, who came to take away the sins of the world, including the sins inherent and explicit in the indigo trade. And mine. Walk humbly, show mercy, act justly. Praise Him. Thanks again.
Teaching us how to observe...Thank you for this perspective.
Thank you so much for this history. I will look upon paintings of “the masters” in a new way … I love what the host said about connecting to the paintings differently now. Even though people of color are rarely represented in these paintings, we are there. Absolutely there.
Wow, thank you so much for this educational and important work! All that beauty has a dark side to it and I am glad that through ladies like Kendall the story of the people behind it are heard and will live on. I think she is doing a wonderful job to connect with her ancestors and bring on their legacy.
seeing so many commenters entirely missing the point of this video. this isn't a 'bet you didn't know this' clickbait video, this is real and brutal history, much of which is present and ongoing
Thanks for a wonderful, alarming wake-up call about the cost of art in our world’s history. This is an extremely important perspective and I look forward to learning much more. I will never see these paintings the same again. More, please! Thanks again for educating us. 🙏
I’d love to see placards or something in museums giving this important information about the materials used in the individual works.
More of Kendall, please! Excellent storytelling of the complex history of indigo. I felt like I was being transported in time!
Thank you very much for this edifying presentation.
The stories behind the scenes are fascinating indeed.
I love mini documentaries like these. She’s doing some incredible work
education and knowledge is fun. There is SO MUCH MORE to paintings than just their appearances. the paintings and even the colors and dyes make statements of life and culture to us! A story to tell
Astonished that indigo, a plant-based dye, produced toxic fumes. So tragic for the enslaved people.
Extraordinary. Brings an entire other, critically important, level of understanding about paintings to light. Thank you. Please keep posting as you continue your research.
I love art, so working with it, and watching videos about art, painting, or mystery about colors, like this video, makes part of the things I just love to do.
I always get very impressed with things that can cause me emotional feelings, and actually, when I am watching this video, I get goosebumps with the outstanding explanation of this lady Kendall.
This is quite an emotional and very impressive video, about the blue indigo color. Thank you for such a remarkable job.
What an amazing video!! Thank you National Gallery and Kendall Francis for such great work, loved to learn the true story behind indigo and its slavery past. Please do more content like this, is very important we understand more about slavery , and specially in Art History,
History revealed in the story of a color. It added so much to my understanding of the beauty and real cost behind art. Art which anyone can walk about and see for ‘free’.
Looking forward to more content from Kendall, thank you for sharing these histories!
Really fascinating. I knew nothing about this history. Thank you for telling it.
Thank you. So horrific, but these stories need to better for all of us. I was chilled by what she said about ancestral voices. Be heard and known.
Brilliant insight into the colour and how obtained, looking forward to the next colour video. All the best for your research
An excellent and highly informative film. Thank you so much for posting it. I wish you all the best for your future career and research. This grim world needs more people like you to tel the stories that might one day just alter humanity for the better.
It's great seing such an important research approaching decolonizing art and museums. Appreciated it so much!
on other hand, the way they obtained those plants and dyes, also meant that some natives or people who lived near those resources probably had to do some hard work to get the plant for the British or the Europeans, for the paintings
Thank you. Love indigo, and blue colors in general. But never thought about the details of their origin in this aspect. Absolutely unexpected approach to the history of arts. And an extremely interesting story of the material used! Stories about other dyes, materials presented in connection with the art pieces would be impatiently expected.
An interesting lesson Thank you, look forward to seeing more from you.
What a fascinating way to reveal the disturbing stories that lie beneath paintings studied and admired for centuries!
My sincere thanks to Ms. Francis and everyone who made this video. It’s both fascinating and horrifying to learn about the two paintings she highlights.
fantastic and important analysis, thank you for sharing these discoveries with us Kendall.
That is a wild history. Thanks for shedding light on how this art reflects a harrowing truth.
When I pass cemeteries, I often think that those I do not even know, have made my life as it is today, by what they contributed.
This video tells a specific view of this idea and this idea penetrates all of our lives in every way. Countless lives have lived and worked and suffered so that we can live today.
It is so intertwined, so many phases that people have been through.
I am very glad that in USA slavery was ended. And hoping there is little slavery left in the world now. And I pray we, in the whole world, are not all going to fall slaves now to a world that wants to control everything from the government and take from us our freedoms and resources.
Excellent video. Thank you.
This sad to hear also enlightening. I will keep in mind those who have suffered for this colour
Very interesting ! Thank you for high-lighting this topic .
Will you be doing more on this topic ? I hope so ! 👌🏻👌🏽
Thank you Kendall! This story informs and enriches us all. I look forward to hearing more from you. Bravo!!
Thank you for this important lesson, & sharing.
16:55, Saturday, 18 December 2021
This is SO incredibly interesting. Thank you so much.
Thank you for this very important video! Makes me wonder how/where indigo is sourced from now by multinational apparel companies
Wonderful film. Kendall brings a whole new textural layer to art history. I wouldn’t have given the Zoffany portrait more than a passing glance otherwise.
Thank you for adding your research...I'm companion watching a US based discussion on Indigo in South Carolina by their historical society. We become aware of history to not repeat the atrocities of the past while appreciating the artifacts left for us to study...
Fascinating combination of pigment, history and art history. Thank you!
Fascinating talk. It has certainly opened my eyes towards the true cost of art from the past
Thank you for this point of view. Part of my ancestors came from West Africa, it was heartbreaking to learn about this part of art history. Thanks to Ms. Francis and team!
Fantastic! Made me quite emotional. More information like this being presented with the artwork itself enhances the experience. I would also love to see a series of these on the history, social impact, and environmental impact of the creation of colour.
Really interesting - thank you! The last point I really felt (about connecting to paintings through our own history and culture)
Fascinating!! And so refreshing to finally see something like this coming from the National Gallery.
Props to Ms. Francis for what she's obviously accomplished and for illuminating the lesser-known side of art. I look forward to reading a book by her someday. In the meantime, if you enjoyed this clip you should read a book by Victoria Finlay called "Color: A History of the Palette." She's an investigative reporter and went in depth with her research, traveling the world over in search of the history of color. She looks at color from the perspectives of art history, chemistry, cultural anthropology, biology and politics throughout history. I lost count how many people I've gifted this book to. It should be required reading for any art history major or enthusiast.
This has made me think about who and how my clothes have been made. I'm not the owner of a cobalt mine or the heiress of a sweatshop line, but I'm benefitting from a system that exploits others.
Thank you, Kendall, for such a lovely and instructive video! I work with pigments ( as an iconographer) and it is always nice to learn more about where they come from and their history.
I would love to learn more about your research.
Excellent!
Fantastic video. Thank you.
Thank you for this: lovely to watch & listen to (thanks for subtitles: due to my brain injury I often read more than listen/hear) & learn whilst having my lunch today. Perfect length for me too!
Thank you for this important information and for your involvement in the research of how art and colour impact on the history of enslaved peoples!
In India indigo was the prime cause for revolution for freedom .
What other countries purchase indigo? The Middle East for instance with the dying of that culture clothing as well as Art work. This is all interesting and informative.
Great project! thank you
Excellently done. Thank you for this thoughtful exploration beyond the surface histories of these paintings.
Indigo was part of USA south and South Carolina history.
Excellent. Thank you
Thank you for sharing.
Unfortunately, in many places in the US, many Republicans would want to ban this from being taught. How tragically sad is it that a dye and what it communicated about its owners/buyers motivated people to do such horrific evils? We're taught to look at these paintings and marvel at their beauty and their "goodness."
Impressive explanation and art lesson, great research. congratulations 👌
Super interesting! Thanks for making this video.
Thank you for such important insights!!!
Fascinating and beautiful told.
What blue comes from lapis lazuli? Not that mining was such a benign practice! Or consider gilt work with the attendant mercury poisoning.
please keep these kinds of investigations going.
if we humans are to progress, we *must* accept that all art is political.
that the concept of "art for art's sake" is a construct. a fallacy.
and that art is a reflection of the socio-economic system within which it is created.
Ok, so, I got it. the color blue...the resource or plant alone was expensive or hard to get and complicated to produce...so back then in those days that MUST had been a sign of wealth. So the color wasn't just chosen for a painting or portrait to be beautiful. It was chosen perhaps ALSO to demonstrate that a person or thing was of "upper class". How am I doing? This was an interesting video. So back then, the color blue for paints and dyes was a sign of wealth and "statement" of the persons identity or class or finances or power....
This is an excellent presentation! The information is fascinating - I've done a fair bit of research on natural dyes and never read that the indigo process has toxic stages, only that it requires "good ventilation". Ms. Francis is a superior presenter. Please use her again!
Thank you for the this beautiful & concise video. The information, so beautifully presented, gives a new nuance to a visit to any art gallery, palace or country house. How appropriate that through this one colour, indigo blue, we can almost reach out & touch this saddest of human stories. I had not heard before that the slave traders sort out out people who were skilled in indigo & rice production. The history of Haiti is one of the saddest as the country, & its people, is the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, also one of the most corrupt.
Yes do a series please, this is such an eyeopening point of view!
Exelent and important presentation thank you!
Excellent . Thankyou for this 💓 and look forward to more .
Absolutely heartbreaking and enlightening at the same time. Thank you for this brilliant and important film, I don’t think I have ever seen a better presentation on this topic in such a short format. Hope you continue your research and spread this information to many more! Many greetings from Sweden
Thank you
times are changing and it's time to change the narrative! GREAT CONNECTIONS! BRAVA!
Excellent.
That Art is connected with so much suffering...who would even thought...
I loved learning about this history although it's sad
This is so fascinating!
Same with the red extracted from our tree Pau-Brasil by colonization!
What about woad, grown in England and providing a blue dye for cloth. This interesting talk states that only indigo could produce blue. Were not policemen's uniforms once dyed with woad?
incredible video
Kendall do you have a website where I can learn more about your research ? How you learned about these things is interesting, please consider writing a book !!
WOW!
The wealthy British achieved their goals of cementing their legacy in history via art, just not the way they intended
thank you. how can I find the engraving of making indigo that showed up this video. can you give the references.
Perfect ! Thank you a lot for that !
Kendall Francis’ presentation was extremely well done & very interesting!
I learned so much & yet I was also very upset to see yet another tie to slavery’s brutally!
Powerful.
Amazing! Thank you.