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Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Colors, Part 1
The scientist and naturalist Moses Harris created the first color wheel to classify red, blue and yellow as the three primary colors.
This was in 1766, just a hundred years after Newton’s discovery.
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Moses worked with pigments rather than lights following a discovery by a French painter that all hues could be reduced to mixtures of red, yellow and blue pigments. He developed and illustrated his theory.
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Picture Above – Moses Harris, the first color wheel to classify red, blue and yellow as the three primary colors.In the centre, the three pigment primaries (primitives) red, yellow and blue from which all colors could theoretically be mixed. He then derived the secondary (compound) hues orange, purple, and green. The mixture of primitives and compounds provided two intermediate stages. This created 18 colors; these were then graded into shades (darker values, which he created by optically mixing more closely placed black lines) and tints (lighter values, normally created by adding white, but he showed wider spacing between the black lines). His classification theory was widely accepted by artists by the mid 19th Century. Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Colors, Part 2 |
