Welcome to Stories in Colour! We're starting at the very beginning to ask an age-old question: are the colours you see, the same as the colours I see?

Join Professor Anya Hurlbert from Newcastle University and National Gallery host Beks Leary as they ask whether colour is real and how exactly we see it, stopping off to look at paintings from the National Gallery along the way. We go back to the viral dress that divided the internet in 2015 – was it blue and black, or was it white and gold? This was the moment so many of us discovered that colour is our own – in Anya’s words – personal possession.

Anya is a Professor of Visual Neuroscience and Dean of Advancement at Newcastle University. Her research focuses on human visual perception: how and why we see what we see. As Scientist Trustee at the National Gallery from 2010-2018, she worked with us on our 2014 ‘Making Colour’ exhibition – bringing together art and science to explain how artists overcame the technical challenges involved in creating colour.

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Watch the full episode on YouTube: youtu.be/gYTWp_iLRh4

You can email us with any questions via podcast@nationalgallery.org.uk

Find out more about the podcast on our website: www.nationalgallery.org.uk/podcast

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Paintings mentioned:

Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Fighting Temeraire, 1839. The National Gallery, London https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-fighting-temeraire

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Skiff (La Yole), 1875. The National Gallery, London https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/pierre-auguste-renoir-the-skiff-la-yole

Claude Monet, Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer), 1890–91. The Art Institute of Chicago https://www.artic.edu/artworks/64818/stacks-of-wheat-end-of-summer

Claude Monet, Stacks of Wheat (Sunset, Snow Effect), 1890–91. The Art Institute of Chicago https://www.artic.edu/artworks/81545/stacks-of-wheat-sunset-snow-effect

Claude Monet, Stacks of Wheat (End of Day, Autumn), 1890–91. The Art Institute of Chicago