Obscurity
·1 min read

James Sowerby (1757-1822), “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”. London, 1809.

James Sowerby (1757 – 1822) was an English naturalist, illustrator and mineralogist.

When he published his colour theory, A new elucidation of colours (1809), as his homage to Issac Newton, Sowerby sought to establish the importance of ‘light and dark’ in colour theory. His theory was that colour is composed of three basic colours: red, yellow and blue.

He wasn’t quite right. Yellow, (or gamboge as he called it – after the painting pigment) would become substituted by green in the later colour systems which were based on it.

See also

The 1809 graphics are cool though. They resemble and foreshadow art yet to come.

Table 1. J. Sowerby. A new elucidation of colours. 1809.
Table 2. J. Sowerby. A new elucidation of colours. 1809.
Table 3. J. Sowerby. A new elucidation of colours. 1809.
Table 4. J. Sowerby. A new elucidation of colours. 1809.
Table 5. J. Sowerby. A new elucidation of colours. 1809.
Table 6. Chromatic Scale. J. Sowerby. A new elucidation of colours. 1809.
Table 7. J. Sowerby. A new elucidation of colours. 1809.

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