COLOUR

The minute you walk into the Audience Chamber on the upper floor of the Palazzo Vecchio (Florence), Francesco Salviati's frescoes draw you like a magnet.  After the controlled use of symbolic colour in the 15c,  following the protocol laid down in previous times for religious art, these mid-16th c paintings are a thrilling riot of indulgence.  Non religious subjects allowed artists to experiment with different hues in depicting fabric, like shot silk, long before the advent of Impressionism and its  en plein air theories.

But the Renaissance colour palette doesn't prepare you for the explosive force of colour in India - there are no rules - brilliant colours and shouting dissonances, extravagantly jostle together, embellished with shiny sequins and braids, shimering under the hot light of a continuous regime of sunshine and heat - overwhelming to an eye used to the veiled luminosity of pastels in Europe.



Construction workers (left) making cement in Gujarat.....