We develop a novel approach to measuring long-run economic growth by exploiting
systematic variation in the use of color in European paintings. Drawing inspiration
from the literature on nighttime lights as a proxy for income, we extract hue,
saturation, and brightness from millions of pixels to construct annual indices for
Great Britain, Holland, France, Italy, and Germany between 1600 and 1820. These
indices track broad trends in existing GDP reconstructions while revealing higher
frequency fluctuations—such as those associated with wars, political instability, and
climatic shocks—that traditional series smooth over. Our findings demonstrate that
light, decomposed into color and brightness components, provides a credible and
independent source of information on early modern economic activity
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