Color and Light in the Theatrical Costume

Abstract

Color has been one of the main issues in scenic design and, by extension, in costume design since the modern era.
Starting from the contributions of Adolphe Appia and Gordon Craig on set design and lighting, and passing through theatrical movements that moved away from naturalistic theatre at the end of the 19th century, as well as through examples of artists and designers from the plastic and scenic avant-gardes, in the first half of the 20th century, color gained autonomy as a vehicle of expression in stage costume. From the 1950s to the present day, these considerations in costume design have expanded, with experiments and research in the field of lighting, where figures such as Josef Svoboda and Robert Wilson have gained great importance. Also, in the second half of the 20th century, and especially in the last twenty-five years, new research in the field of stage costumes has been promoted, opening new paths and perspectives that shed other perspectives and viewpoints on the influence of color in costume.
Thus, in more recent times, some studies on stage costume design support the idea that the color palette in costume becomes a fundamental conceptual and narrative tool in
contemporary stage production.