«Chromomentalisme» : psychologies de la couleur et cultures visuelles en France au passage du siécle (1870-1914)

Whilst the influence of color optical theories on the development of pictorial techniques in the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries has been the subject of numerous studies, the field of color psychology needs to be explored further. Our research focuses on the historical and epistemological links between psycho-physiological approaches to color - derived from the discourse of experimental psychology, psychiatry and psychic sciences - and visual cultures at the turn of the Twentieth century. This dissertation explores the power of color as mental conditioning, or «chromomentalism» : how color influences the mind and more broadly the body of the individual by affecting its ability to concentrate, health or mood. The thesis presents three major axes that correspond to multiples aspects of color psychology : color-attention, color-energy and color-emotion. The first part analyzes the attention-grabbing devices used both in the laboratory and on stage, the dialectic between attention and distraction in urban experiences, and the rise of psychotechnics of color (art, cinema, advertising). The second part explores the oractices of energetic control (the utopian goal of the "body without fatigue", neurasthenia, psychotechnics of energy) and the bio-aesthetic interpretation of color that emerges from occultism and experimental sciences. The third part focuses on the power of color to affect emotion, by questioning the debate on empathy and the education of the senses, the popular aesthetics of colors, the link between chromatic and social harmonies.