SOCKS

An online magazine of Art, Architecture, Media, Culture, Sounds, Territories, Technology)

  • Media
  • Art
  • Architecture
  • Culture
  • Sounds
  • Territories
  • Visual Atlas

Theory of Colours: James Sowerby’s ‘A New Elucidation’ (1809)

December 3, 2014 by Fosco Lucarelli Leave a Comment

James Sowerby (21 March 1757 – 25 October 1822) was an English naturalist and illustrator. His 1809 book ‘A new elucidation of colours, original, prismatic, and material showing their concordance in three primitives, yellow, red, and blue; and the means of producing, measuring, and mixing them. With some observations on the accuracy of Sir Isaac Newton‘ (entirely viewable online at Archive.org), was an homage to Isaac Newton and presented a theory of colour based on the importance of ‘light and dark’. The theory was based on three basic colours: red, yellow and blue. Yellow, or better, gamboge, was later replaced by green in modern colour systems.

Here’s some illustrated plates from the essay.

(Via Data is Nature)

sowerby-01

 

sowerby-02

 

sowerby-03

 

sowerby-04

 

sowerby-05

 

sowerby-06

 

sowerby-07

 

sowerby-08

 

 

Related Posts

  • "Taking Measures Across the American Landscape" by James Corner and Alex McLean

    James Corner, internationally renowned landscape architect and forerunner of the landscape urbanism movement, was author…

  • James Whitney, pioneer of visual music

    Early (50's to 70's) attempts of illustrating music with motion patterns, caleidoscopic textures, dots and…

  • James Corner and Alex S. Maclean: Taking Measures Across The American Landscape (1996)

    "The techniques of representation are never neutral and architecture’s abstract means of imagining and realizing…

  • Clusters and Growth: PREVI Housing Project by James Stirling (1976)

    PREVI (Proyecto experimental de vivienda), (Experimental Housing Project), was a strategic low-cost project for experimental…

  • "Taking Measures Across the American Landscape" by James Corner and Alex McLean

    James Corner, internationally renowned landscape architect and forerunner of the landscape urbanism movement, was author…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Tumblr

Socks is a non-linear journey through distant territories of human imagination.

About | Visual Atlas | Topics

We are Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli from Microcities. Ask us anything

  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Tumblr


SOCKS is a project by Fosco Lucarelli and Mariabruna Fabrizi of MICROCITIES, Architecture Cityscape, Landscape.
Except where otherwise noted, the content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license.
Whenever possible we try to attribute content (images, videos, and quotes) to their creators and original sources. Please feel free to write us if you notice misattributions or wish something to be removed.
SOCKS is powered by WordPress.