R. Shamey, R. G. KuehniPioneers of Color Sciencehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30811-1_27

27. Harris, Moses, 1730–1788

Renzo Shamey¹ and Rolf G. Kuehni¹

(1)

Color Science and Imaging Laboratory, North Carolina State University, Wilson College of Textiles, Raleigh, NC, USA

Renzo Shamey (Corresponding author)

Email: rshamey@ncsu.edu

Rolf G. Kuehni

Email: rolf_kuehni@ncsu.edu

27.1 The Natural System of Colours

References

../images/336076_1_En_27_Chapter/336076_1_En_27_Figa_HTML.png — Moses Harris, Selfportrait, 1780

Little is known about the life of Moses Harris, who was born on April 15, 1730, in England. Like Ignaz Schiffermüller, Harris was an entomologist and engraver who engraved his own copperplate illustrations. He was introduced at an early age to the study of insects by his uncle who was a member of the Society of Aurelians, a group of people in London studying insects. Around 1762, Harris became the secretary of the Aurelian Society. Harris exhibited some of his drawings at the Royal Academy. He also provided illustrations for books related to nature of other authors. Perhaps, his best-known and most important work is the wonderfully illustrated Aurelian: a natural history of English moths and butterflies (1766). Harris died ca. 1788, leaving behind his wife and son John (1767–1832) who also became a well-known illustrator [1].

27.1 The Natural System of Colours

Concerned with obtaining a more objective definition of colors in entomology and in other fields, he designed two comparably designed color charts, published sometime between 1769 and 1776 in a very brief book (6 pages of text) with a lengthy title, the main part of it being The Natural System of Colours [2]. It is dedicated to the painter Joshua Reynolds, then the president of the Royal Academy. The system is based on the three primaries red, yellow, and blue, resulting in the “mediates” orange, green, and purple. There are two hand-colored hue circles, each displaying 16 hues. The first is titled “prismatic,’ meant to be based on spectral colors (Fig. 27.1). Harris was not knowledgeable concerning the difference between additive and subtractive color mixtures. He represented the mixture of the three primaries in the center “by three triangular pieces of stained glass,” as being black, thus the result of subtractive mixture. This is supported by green being designated as the median between yellow and blue, only valid in mixture of colorant primaries. The colors shown in the two charts are hand-painted, presumably with water colors (see Fig. 27.1).

../images/336076_1_En_27_Chapter/336076_1_En_27_Fig1_HTML.png — Fig. 27.1
“Prismatic” and “Compound” charts from Harris’ “The Natural System of Colours”

The actual charts are not in agreement with the written text: Each of the 18 hues is “… divided into twenty parts or degrees of power, from the deepest or strongest, to the weakest; or from the outermost to the innermost circle, called teints …” The charts show only 10 teints of each hue, each numbered at increments of 2 from 2 to 20. Each teint scale is supposedly from the full color on the outside to the darkest appearing teint in the innermost circle. In different remaining copies, different coloring approaches appear to have been used, as the figures below show. (Complete tint/shade scales from white via the full color circle to black were first indicated in P. O. Runge’s color sphere of 1810.) The appearance of growing darkness and reduced “strength” was achieved by an increasing number of black circular lines in each teint field, starting with zero in the outermost circle and ending with 11 in the innermost one, thereby relying on the color assimilation effect, a standard engravers’ technique for shading. As a result, the samples of each hue decrease in chromatic intensity from the outside of the circle to the inside while at the same time appearing increasingly dark. Based on 20 teint circles, Harris calculated the total number of differing colors in the “prismatic” chart as 360. The second chart is named “compound,” with its key colors being the mediates of the first chart. The key new colors in this chart are brown, slate, and “olave.” Given the fact that orange, green, and purple are present in both charts, Harris counted only 300 colors in the “compound” chart, for a total of 630 in both charts. Harris considered the charts useful for painters to find the most contrasting hues, located on either chart directly opposite. The numbering of hues and teint levels allowed for a numeric definition of a given color, useful for communication.

A second edition of the book appeared posthumously in 1811. The coloration of its charts was distinctly different from that of the original edition [3]. Copies of the first edition are extremely rare. The colors in their charts have usually deteriorated to a smaller or larger extent. It is considered one of the rarest books about color. A reprint edition was produced in 1963 by Faber Birren [4].