The culture of tincture: experiencing colour in medicine, art, and chymistry in early modern Britain (1650–1750)

In early modern Britain, tincture possessed several meanings related to colour and pigment. They can be found in various art forms, including dyeing, limning, varnishing, gilding, coloured prints, glass-making, etc. Tincture as both a material and a colour-related concept was also used in medicine, chymistry, alchemy, and literature and became increasingly popular since the mid-seventeenth century. This essay highlights the understanding and use of colour through tincture’s versatile applications across disciplines. It centres around three material properties that characterize the making and experience of tincture: tincture’s feature of penetrating surface (both material and the human body); the purity of tincture through extraction, which signified material essence and liveness; multisensory experience of tincture through colour, scent, and taste. These aspects suggest the ‘sense of volume’ of colour, with tincture expressing its flexible, experiential, and elusive qualities.