Embedded Files
History of Theories of Colour
History of Theories of Colour
Simonini, Giulia, 2025. Color Charts in 18th century Europe - Natural, Pigmentary, and Trichromatic)
Chronological bibliography on colour theory (José Luis Caivano)
Very extensive bibliography of colour literature from antiquity onwards.
Color museum (Narciso Silvestrini and Ernst Peter Fischer):
Major summary of colour classification systems from antiquity to the present day.
Color model museum (Colorcube):
One-page summary of historical colour systems (from book by Gerritsen)
Mollon, J. D. (2003) The origins of modern color science.
http://vision.psychol.cam.ac.uk/jdmollon/papers/MollonColorScience.pdf
Excellent chapter on the history of colour science after Newton, from Shevell, S. (Ed) Color Science, Optical Society of America, Washington.
Roberti, Valentina (2018) Maxwell and Helmholtz and the birth of the theory of colour. [Ph.D. thesis]
A chronological history of vision research (Jack Yellott)
The dimensions of colour (David Briggs)
http://www.huevaluechroma.com/062.php (Primary Colours)
http://www.huevaluechroma.com/071.php (From Aristotle to Newton )
http://www.huevaluechroma.com/072.php (The RYB Hue Circle or "Artists' Colour Wheel" )
Malloy, Vanja, Intersecting colors (2015)
Collection of essays relating to Josef Albers.
The origins of colour (Cambridge University Library, presenter Simon Schaffer)
Filmed in Woolsthorpe and Cambridge and shows original manuscripts of Newton and others
Archives and Anthologies of Historical Texts on Colour
Archives and Anthologies of Historical Texts on Colour
Science in the making: a scientific history of colours (The Royal Society)
Shaping Colour (Scottish Universities Research Collections Associate Scheme)
Color -- Early works to 1800 (The Online Books Page)
Color in a new light (Smithsonian)
Birren collection of books on color (Yale University Library)
English translations of historical texts on colour (Rolf G. Kuehni, Michael Brill)
https://web.archive.org/web/20190424000010/http://www.iscc-archive.org/resources/translations.php
Provides English translations of the anonymous Treatise on Pastel Painting (1708), Johann Heinrich Lambert's Farbenpyramide (1772), Philipp Otto Runge´s FarbenKugel (1810), Arthur König's Fundamental Sensations and their Intensity Distribution in the Spectrum (1886), Wilhelm Ostwald's New Researches in Color Science (1916), Erwin Schrödinger's Theory of Pigments of Greatest Lightness, (1920), Robert Luther's On Color Stimulus Metrics (1927), and Jerome Y. Lettvin's The Colors of Colored Things (1967). Currently seems to be available only through archive.org.
Sloane, Patricia, Primary sources : selected writings on color from Aristotle to Albers (1991)*
Macadam, David, Sources of color science (1970)*
Historical Texts Online (selected)
Historical Texts Online (selected)
See also Textbooks on Colour, 1860 to Present in Section 11. There are still a lot of texts, illustrations and annotations to add to these two sections, so keep checking back.
Aristotle, Sense and sensibilia (4th c. BC)
https://archive.org/details/aristotledesensu00arisuoft/page/56/mode/2up
Peri Aisthesos kai aistheton (Sense and Sense Objects, pp. 56-58, 68) contains Aristotle's suggestion that chromatic colours arise from combinations of black and white in different proportions, and thus form a linear scale between the two. Numerous variations on this idea would appear over the next two millenia.
Aristotle also discusses colour in relation to the rainbow in his Meteorologica (Meteorology), and he or his successor Theophrastus give a quite different account of colour in Peri khromaticon (On Colours).
Linear colour order systems. A. Aristotle, c. 330 BC, Peri Aistheseos kai aistheton. B. Chalcidius, c. 325 AD, from his commentary on Plato's Timaeus,. C. Bartholomaeus Anglicus, c.1245, from his encyclopaedia De rerum naturalis (Of natural things). D. Leonardo da Vinci,c. 1500, Trattato della pittura. E. Robert Fludd, 1629, Medicina Catholica. All diagrams based on purely verbal descriptions except E. For details of the original publications see Kuehni and Schwartz (2008, pp. 31-33, 37-38).
Cennini, Cennino, The book of the art of Cennino Cennini (Eng., tr. Herringham, Christiana Jane Powell, Lady, 1922)
Practical manual describing the painting process of Giotto and his generation, including discussion of colouring and pigments.
Alberti, Leon Battista, 1435. De pictura.
http://www.noteaccess.com/Texts/Alberti/ [Eng., tr. Spencer, 1956]
Alberti's treatise for painters introduces a number of observations of phenomena of colour and light, and describes a system of four "genera" of colours stretching between black and white and passing through red, blue, green and "earth grey and ash" (variously interpreted to mean grey or yellow) respectively. Comparablly structured multilinear systems would later be illustrated by Forsius and Glisson.
Multilinear colour order systems. A. Avicenna, 1015, Liber de anima, with "paths" through pallidus (uncertain, either yellow-green or grey), rubeus (red) and indicus (indigo blue). B. Al Tusi, 13th c. commenatary on Avicenna. C. Alberti, 1435, Della Pictura, with "genera" passing through red, blue, green and grey/beige (bigia et cinericia). D. Sigfridus Forsius, 1611 manuscript Physica, "ancient" system, with colours in two series, through red and blue. E. Forsius' second system, with five series through red, yellow, green, blue and grey. F. Glisson, 1677, Tractatus de ventriculo et intestinis,. Diagrams A, B and C, which were not illustrated by their authors, are modeled on the later diagrams by Forsius and Glisson. For details of the original publications see Kuehni and Schwarz (2008).
Leonardo da Vinci, A treatise on painting.
http://www.archive.org/details/treatiseonpainti001974mbp (tr. Rigaud, 1877)
English translation of the "abridged version" by which the Treatise on Painting was known until Francesco Melzi's original compilation, the Codex Urbino 1270, was rediscovered in the late 19th century.
Leonardo da Vinci and his treatise on painting
Comprehensive online collection of the manuscripts and historical printed editions of Leonardo's "Treatise on Painting", including the Codex Urbino 1270.
Left: analysis of light and shade on a sphere, Codex Urbinas 1270 213r (compiled c. 1540), after a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci (1490-92). Right: realization of same study as a digital painting, David Briggs, 2019.
Richter, Jean Paul, The literary works of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
A two-volume selection from Leonardo's notebooks, with parallel English translation.
MacCurdy, Edward, The notebooks Of Leonardo Da Vinci (1955)
https://archive.org/details/TheNotebooksOfLeonardoDaVinci_201508/mode/2up
Another extensive selection from the notebooks in English.
Leonardo da Vinci. Online archives of complete notebooks.
https://www.codex-atlanticus.it/ (Codex Atlanticus , The Visual Agency)
http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Arundel_MS_263 (Codex Arundel, British Museum)
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/leonardo-da-vincis-notebooks (Codex Forster I - III, Victoria & Albert Museum)
https://archive.org/details/codex-madrid/mode/2up (Codex Madrid)
https://www.photo.rmn.fr/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=2CMFCI6T0L51E#/SearchResult&VBID=2CMFCI6T0LT6Y (Paris manuscripts, Bibliothèque De L'institut De France)
https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/page/1 (Royal Collection, Royal Collection Trust)
Aguilòn, François de, Opticorum libri sex, philosophia iuxta ac mathematicis utiles (1613)
Includes the first printed diagram of colour relationships. D’Aguilon’s diagram ingeniously reconciles (1) in the middle a linear scale of colours between black and white in the tradition of Aristotle with (2) in the upper part a multilinear system of scales through yellow, red, blue and grey respectively, like those described previously by Avicenna, Alberti, Forsius and others, and (3) in the lower part a trichromatic system in which a continuous circuit of hues can be traced in arcs representing mixtures of successive pairs of yellow, red and blue (Briggs, in press). The idea of separating these arcs out as a circle would wait until Newton in 1704
François d.Aguilòn, Opticorum libri sex, philosophia iuxta ac mathematicis utiles (1613). Left: Title page of Book One with engraving by Rubens. Right: Page 40 of first book, showing first printed diagram of colour relationships.
Newton, Isaac, New theory about light and colour (1672)
Newton, Isaac, Opticks, a treatise of the reflexions, refractions, inflextions and colours of lights.
https://archive.org/details/b30412316/mode/2up [1st edn, 1704]
http://books.google.com/books?id=OBIOAAAAQAAJ [1st Latin edn, 1706]
https://archive.org/details/opticksortreatis1718newt/mode/2up (2nd edn, 1718)
https://archive.org/details/opticksortreatis1721newt/mode/2up [3rd edn, 1721]
https://archive.org/details/b30521142/mode/2up [4th edn, 1730]
Newton's scientific papers (The Newton Project)
Sir Isaac Newton, Opticks (1704). Newtons experiments on mixtures of spectral rays (e.g. Fig 10), summed up in his circle Figure 11, showed that the colour of an isolated light is the way in which we perceive the overall balance of its spectral components, considered as a two dimensional system.
Waller, Richard, Tabula colorum physiologica … [Table of physiological colours] (1686)
Anonymous (C. B.), Traité de la peinture en mignature (Treatise on miniature painting) (1708).
The Traité de la painture au pastel (Treatise on pastel painting) included in this Van Dole edition of the Treatise published in the Hague includes the first published coloured hue circle.
An English translation with an essay on its authorship by Rolf G. Kuehni, and including a much better image of the colour circles than the Google document.
The two coloured circles from the 1708 Van Dole edition of the Traité de la peinture en mignature.. The circle on the left shows the seven paints used to paint the twelve colours in the circle on the right.
Le Blon, Jacob Christoph, Coloritto, or, the harmony of colouring in painting (1720).
Instruction manual for painters by the inventor of three-colour printing. Le Blon introduced the post-Newtonian version of traditional colour theory in which red, yellow and blue make black, in contrast to he Aristotelian colour theory in which they are made of black and white: "Yellow and Red make an Orange Colour. Red and Blue make a Purple and Violet Colour. Blue and Yellow make a Green Colour. And a Mixture of thofe Three Original Colours makes a Black and all other Colours whatfoever ; as I have demonftrated by my Invention of Printing Pictures and Figures with their natural Colours."
Jacob Le Blon's Coloritto, or, the Harmony of Colouring in Painting (1720). The four plates, incomplete on the archive.org scan, are from Otto M. Lilien's "Jacob Christoph Le Blon 1667-1741" (1985)
Bardwell, Thomas, The practice of painting and perspective made easy (1756)
Highly influential account of the technique of painting in layers.
Harris, Moses, Natural system of colours (c. 1766 - 1776)
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=V-dQAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PP7
Includes two striking circular diagrams, "Prismatic" and "Compound", of watercolour washes over printed lines of varying density.
Schiffermüller, Ignaz, Versuch eines Farbensystems (1772)
Includes an illustrated 12-hue colour circle. Wth Harris one of the first after the much earlier circle illustrated anonymously in the Traité de la painture au pastel in 1708.
Lambert, Johann Heinrich, Beschreibung einer mit Calauischem Wachse ausgemalten Farben-Pyramide (1772)
Ignaz Schiffermüller's Versuch eines Farbensystems (1772) and Johann Heinrich Lambert's Beschreibung einer mit Calauischem Wachse ausgemalten Farben-Pyramide , both from 1772
Palmer, George, Theory of colours and vision (1777)
Dalton, John, Extraordinary Facts Relating to the Vision of Colours: With Observations (1794)
Young, Thomas, On the theory of light and colours (1802)
https://archive.org/details/miscellaneouswo01youngoog/page/n183/mode/2up
Text of Young's 1801 Bakerian lecture in which he, in passing, suggests the hypothesis of three visual receptors tuned to different wavelengths. See also:
An account of some gases of the production of colours not hitherto described (1802)
On the nature of light and colours (1807) and accompanying plate, Lecture 39 from A course of lectures on natural philosophy and the mechanical arts.
Chromatics,' from the supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica (1817)
Thomas Young's illustrations for On the Nature of Light and Colours (1807)
Gartside, Mary, An essay on light and shade, on colours, and on composition in general (1805)
Gartside, Mary, An essay on a new theory of colours, and on composition in general (1808)
Gartside, Mary, An Essay on a New Theory of Colours, and on Composition in General (1808 edn)
Sowerby, James, A new elucidation of colours, original, prismatic, and material (1809)
Runge, Philipp Otto, Farben-Kugel (1810).
http://www.archive.org/details/farbenkugeloderc00rung [German]
Describes and illustrated a model of colour relationships in the form of a colour sphere.
English translation with notes by Rolf Kuehni.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, Zur Farbenlehre (1810)
http://www.farben-welten.de/farben-welten/goethes-farbenlehre.html [Complete German text online]
http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/ebind/hdok/H71_GoetheFarb/XML/index.xml?part=thumb [plates]
http://www.archive.org/details/goethestheoryco00goetgoog [partial English translation of Zur Farbenlehre by Eastlake, 1840]
Philipp Otto Runge's Farben-Kugel and Johann Wolfgang Goethe's Zur Farbenlehre, both from 1810
Hayter, Charles, An introduction to perspective, drawing, and painting (1815)
Full title: "An introduction to perspective, drawing, and painting : in a series of pleasing and familiar dialogues between the author's children ; illustrated by appropriate plates and diagrams, and a sufficiency of practical geometry, and a compendium of genuine instruction, comprising a progressive and complete body of information carefully adapted for the instruction of females, and suited equally to the simplicity of youth and to mental maturity".
https://archive.org/details/gri_33125010814511 [2nd edn, 1815]
https://archive.org/details/introductiontope00hayt_0/page/202/mode/2up [6th edn 1845]
See also Hayter's, A new practical treatise on the three primitive colours, assumed as a perfect system of rudimental information ... With some practical rules for reflections; and Sir Isaac Newton's distribution of the colours in the rainbow. (1826), which was incorporated into later editions of his Introduction, including the sixth edition above.
Field, George, Chromatics, or, an essay on the analogy and harmony of colours (1817)
https://archive.org/details/chromatics00fiel/mode/2up (1817 edn)
https://archive.org/details/dli.ministry.01302/mode/2up (1844 edn)
Introduces the term "tertiary colour" for dull colours (considered since Le Blon to contain the three "primary colours", red, yellow and blue).
From George Field's Chromatics (1817)
Field, George, Chromatography, or, a treatise on colours and pigments : and of their powers in painting, &c. (1835)
https://archive.org/details/gri_c00033125008687523/mode/2up (1st edn)
https://archive.org/details/chromatographytr00fiel/mode/2up (1869 edn)
See also Field, George, & Davidson, Ellis A., A Grammar of Colouring, Applied to Decorative Painting and Parts (1874, 1888, 1896) and Field, George, Rudiments of the Painter's Art, or a Grammar of Colouring (1850, 1870).
Frontispiece of George Field's Chromatography. Left: 1st edition, 1835. Right: Winsor & Newton edition, 1869.
Hay, David Ramsay. The laws of harmonious colouring : adapted to interior decorations, manufactures, and other useful purposes (3rd edn, 1836)
Hay, David Ramsay. The laws of harmonious colouring, Fourth edn, 1838.
Chevreul, Michel Eugène, De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs (1839)
https://archive.org/details/delaloiducontras00chev/page/n17/mode/2up (text)
https://archive.org/details/Delaloiducontra00Chev/page/n5/mode/2up (plates)
For English translations see The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colours, and their Applications to the Arts, Third Edition (tr. Charles Martel, 1860) and The Laws of Contrast of Colour, New Edition (tr. John Spanton, 1861).
See also Chevreul's very handsome volume of colour circles and scales Des Couleurs et de leurs Applications aux Arts Industriels à l'aide des Cercles Chromatiques (1864) and his Complément des Etudes sur la Vision des Couleurs (1879)
Model of hemispherical colour space (with folding flap) and colour plate from Michel Eugène Chevreul's De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs (1839)
Ruskin, John, The elements of drawing (1857)
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.264111/mode/2up
See Section III, On Composition and Colour.
Also see Ruskin's The Laws of Fesole (1879), which includes a poetically named 12-hue system that seems to be the first in which the term "tertiary" is used for the six third order hues between the primary and secondary hues, as distinct from the older usage introduced by George Field in 1817 for three-component colours (i.e. colours then thought to contain all three "primary" components).
Helmholtz, Hermann von, Handbuch der Physiologischen Optik (1867)
http://www.archive.org/details/handbuchderphysi00helm [1st edn, in German]
http://www.archive.org/details/handbuchderphys00helmgoog [2nd edn, Arthur König ed., 1896, in German]
https://web.archive.org/web/20180320133752/http://poseidon.sunyopt.edu/BackusLab/Helmholtz/ [Southall English translation, 1924]
Helmholtz's handbook was issued in three volumes dealing with the physics of the stimulus (1856), the physiology of the sense organs (1860), and perception (1866).
A second edition with extensive additions by Helmholtz and König was published in 1896 and a third edition based on the text from the first edition with extensive notes and some new chapters by the editors was published in German in 1909 and in English translation in 1924 (not freely available online at present).
Helmholtz had ushered in a revolution in our understanding of colour in two papers in 1852, both available in English in the same volume of the The London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science. On Sir David Brewster's New Analysis of of Solar Light elegantly and finally demolished the theory of Brewster and others before him that the spectrum of light is not continuous but is physically made up of red, yellow and blue rays. Demolition of this theoretical roadblock had been necessary to allow reconsideration of the theory of three tuned receptors proposed by Thomas Young in 1802. On the Theory of Compound Colours clearly explained the largely subtractive nature of paint mixing, thus showing that a mixture of yellow and blue paints is green, not because the colours yellow and blue combine to form green, but because yellow and blue paints share reflectance in the middle or green-appearing part of the spectrum.
See also Helmholtz's Popular lectures on scientific subjects, first series (1878) and second series (1893), which include his thoughts of the implications of colour science for painters.
Two diagrams from Hermann von Helmholtz's Handbuch der Physiologischen Optik (Volume 2, 1860). Left: hue circle showing additive (light-mixing and visual) complementaries arranged in five pairs: purple/green, red/blue green, orange/cyan blue, yellow/indigo blue and yellow green/violet. Right: Helmholtz's estimate of the responses of the three visual receptors. His former student König would later show that the so-called red and green receptors overlap much more extensively.
Maxwell, James Clerk, The scientific papers of James Clerk Maxwell (edited Niven, W.D., 1890).
http://www.archive.org/details/scientificpapers01maxwuoft (Volume 1)
http://www.archive.org/details/scientificpapers02maxwuoft (Volume 2)
Building on the advances of Helmholtz and Grassmann, Maxwell lay the foundations of the modern science of colorimetry with his experiments first on spinning discs and the on mixing spectral lights. The individual papers in this collection are:
On the Theory of Colours in relation to Colour-Blindness (1856)
Experiments on Colour as perceived by the Eye, with remarks on Colour-Blindness (1857)
On the unequal sensibility of the Foramen Centrale to Light of different Colours (1856)
On the Theory of Compound Colours with reference to mixtures of Blue and Yellow Light (1856)
On the Theory of Compound Colours and the Relations of the Colours of the Spectrum (1860)
On the best Arrangement for producing a Pure Spectrum on a Screen (1868)
On Colour Vision (1872)
Exploring Trichromacy through Maxwell's Color Experiment (Koh Terai with Brian Wandell )
Interactive online animations of Maxwell's colour matching experiments
Plates from James Clerk Maxwell's Experiments on Colour as perceived by the Eye, with remarks on Colour-Blindness (1857, left) and On the Theory of Compound Colours and the Relations of the Colours of the Spectrum (1860, right).
Hering, Ewald, Lehre vom Lichtsinne (1878)
Includes Hering's opponent model of colour vision. Revised version published in 1920 as Grundzüge der Lehre vom Lichtsinn (Outlines of A Theory of the Light Sense).
Hering's diagrams illustrating his opponent theory of colour vision from Grundzüge der Lehre vom Lichtsinn (Outlines of A Theory of the Light Sense, 1920).
Ridgway, Robert, 1886. A nomenclature of colors for naturalists : and compendium of useful knowledge for ornithologists (1886)
See also Color Standards and Color Nomenclature (1912) by the same author.
Lacouture, Charles, Répertoire chromatique (1890)
From Charles Lacouture's Répertoire Chromatique (1890)
Munsell, Albert Henry, A color notation (1905)
https://archive.org/details/colornotation00muns/mode/2up (1919 edition)
See also Is Academic Training Harmful? (1894), The Diaries of Albert H. Munsell (Munsell Color Science Lab, RIT), A Pigment Color System and Notation (1912), Color Balance Illustrated (1913), Atlas of the Munsell Color System (1915) and A Grammar Of Color (with Cleland, 1921).
Selected plates from the Atlas of the Munsell Color System (1915)
Pope, Arthur, Tone relations in painting (1922)
A student of Denman Ross who used Ross's classification of colour as a three-dimensional framework for describing colour appearance for painters. Ross showed that hue pages could be divided up according to what he called (in different editions of his text) saturation/purity and energy of vibration/brilliance. Later editions include The Language of Drawing and Painting (1949)*.
Cooper, F.G., Munsell manual of color (1929)
https://munsell.com/color-blog/manual-color-defining-fundamental-characteristics-color/
https://munsell.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/munsell-manual-of-color.pdf
Ladd-Franklin, Christine, Colour and colour theories (1929)
Katz, David, World of Colour (1935)
Evans, Ralph. The Perception of Color (1974)*
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