On the Source of dAguilons Arc Color Mixture Diagram

Rolf G. Kuehni 4112 Blaydes Court, Charlotte, NC 28226 Abstract: In 1613 dAguilon published a book on optics containing a novel color mixture diagram in arc form. Diagrams of similar form are found in many medieval manuscripts where they have been used to help clarify complex relationships between things. The source of this kind of graphical representation appears to be the late classical Roman author Boethius who may have used it in his work on Greek musical theory. Most of the approximately 140 extant manuscripts of this work contain such diagrams. This form of diagram was used to express color relationships for some 90 years after dAguilon. Key words: Color order systems, color scaling, history INTRODUCTION As the history of color order shows relationships between colors are rather complex and took two millennia to unravel. Originally color order systems consisted of lists of colors, such as those by Aristotle or Alberti. It was only at the beginning of the 17th century that the first graphical representations of color order appeared in the work of Forsius.1 Forsius wrote a manuscript on physics in 1611while at the Swedish court. It was not printed and there appears to exist only one, the original, copy. The novel idea of presenting color relationships graphically, though begun by Forsius, did not spread from his effort, revolutionary as it was. However, it seems that the idea was in the air, because at the same time a different style of graphical representation of color order was developed by the Belgian Jesuit and scholar Franois dAguilon (1567-1617) who under the Latinized name of Aguilonius published in 1613 a six-chapter book on optics, Opticorum libri sex. 2 In this book, famous for its title page and six illustrations by his countryman Peter Paul Rubens, dAguilon treated briefly of color and offered a kind of diagram of color order that was to become influential for the next 100 years or so (Fig. 1). DAguilon used a list of five simple colors shortened and idealized from Aristotles list of seven, perhaps taken from Chalcidius, the (believed to be) 5th century AD translator into Latin and commentator of Platos Timaeus. 3 According to Aristotle the simple chromatic colors are produced from white and black by a process that he described only opaquely. This remained received wisdom until the Newtonian revolution. In his graphic representation dAguilon showed tonal mixtures of the three chromatic simple colors with white and black as well as between white and black (a gray scale), with arcs above the line of simples. Below the line he represented with other arcs the hue mixtures of the three chromatic simple colors. The diagram impresses with its economy, expressiveness and symmetry. Did dAguilon think up this diagram or did he borrow it from other sources?

FIG. 1 dAguilons color mixture diagram in Opticorum libri sex of 1613.

ARC DIAGRAMS John Gage, in his book Color and Culture, attributed dAguilons diagram to similar diagrams representing Pythagorean ideas about musical harmony and used an illustration from Gioseffo Zarlinos 1573 book Insitutioni Harmoniche. 4 He cryptically added that such diagrams have been shown in theoretical texts [about musical harmony] ever since Antiquity. Indeed, Aristotle referred in his writings on color to simple chromatic colors being generated from white and black in the ratio of 3 to 2 or of 3 to 4, or in ratios expressible by other numbers . we may regard all these colors as analogous to the sounds that enter into music, and suppose that those involving simple numerical ratios, like the concords in music, may be those generally regarded as most agreeable. 5 From these lines and similar ones from later authors it was eminently sensible for dAguilon to use for colors the same style of graphical representation used by the writers on musical harmony. There are no extant writings of Pythagoras and in those of Aristotle there is no indication that he thought of expressing relationships among things with graphics. Yet diagrams of this nature have been found in several late Middle Age manuscripts. In the 14th century the Oxford scholar Richard Swineshead (active around 1350, together with three other Oxford mathematicians known as the Calculators) wrote a mathematical book, Liber calculationem, where in one of the 16 chapters he described 49 rules of local motion. 6 These rules represent the relationship between velocity of an object and the force resistance working against it. Swineshead, or perhaps his scribe, attempted in the manuscript margins to show the complicated relationships graphically. Figure 2 is one of several illustrations, this one concerned only with the mathematics of force and resistance. It graphically represents seven different cases making more or less explicit use of the arc form of diagram. Some of the work of the Calculators has been interpreted as equivalent to Galileis law of falling bodies.

FIG. 2. Marginal illustration with arc figures in a manuscript of Richard Swinesheads Liber calculationum, 14th century.

In the same century the eminent French economist, mathematician and physicist Nicole Oresme (ca. 1320 1382) wrote his work De proportionibus proportionum where in one chapter he compared the ratios between circles within as well as circumscribing regular polygons. 7 Figure 3 is from a 15th century manuscript of this book and succinctly summarizes the content of the chapter using the same kind of arc diagram. The proportions are expressed, depending on their complexity, with words or numbers. The medieval terminology of half of a ratio is identical to modern terminology of square root.

FIG. 3. Arc figure in a 14th century manuscript of Nicole Oresmes Proportio proportionum.

BOETHIUS The question arises as to who was the inventor of this kind of graphical representation and thereby, perhaps, the inventor of graphical representation in general? The history of transmission of the works of the classical Greek authors is an interesting and complex one. Many of the works of Greek philosophers were translated into Latin only in the 12th

century. An exception is formed by works related to music. Song and music as part of services became important with the acceptance of the Christian religion in the 4th century. Pythagorean, Platonic and Aristotelian ideas were available to early Christian thinkers through the works of Plotinus (205-270). But Plotinus did not write on music. It was the late Roman statesman and philosopher Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (ca. 480-524) who provided the seminal translations of Greek writing on music into Latin. Boethius is most famous for his De consolatione philosophiae, written during his one-year stay in prison in Pavia before his execution in 524. His scientific writings paved the way for the quadrivium, the scholastic study program in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. The sources of Boethius work on music, De institutione musica, are believed to have been Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Nichomachus, and others. 8 He had the habit of shortening sections he found too long and expanding on others that he thought too brief, as he admitted himself. He was aware of the difficulty for the reader of some of the subjects and in his translation of a related mathematical text by Nichomachus he wrote (as translated by Bower): Sometimes I have used paradigms and diagrams to make these things clearer. There are no known original copies of Boethius works. Figure 4 is a portrait of Boethius from a 12th century manuscript. He plucks the single string of an instrument while moving an index finger up and down and judging the resulting sound, as the Latin inscription around the figure indicates.

FIG. 4. Portrait of Boethius from an English manuscript, ca. 1130 Cambridge University Library

Boethius himself commented on the relationship between color and music: Just as when a rainbow is observed, the colors are so close to one another that no definite line separates one color from the other rather it changes from red to yellow, for

example, in such a way that continuous mutation into the following color occurs with no clearly defined median falling between them so also this may often occur in pitches. 8 The earliest extant manuscripts of Musica date from the 9th century. A large percentage of the more than 140 manuscript still in existence today have illustrations of the harmonic relations in the musical diapason. Figure 5 a and b are from a 12th century English manuscript. 9 Figure 5a represents an octave based on the (Roman) numbers 6, 8, 9 and 12. The double ratio (6 and 12) results in an octave while other ratios represent fifths (diapente) and fourths (diatesseron). In this figure all arcs are above the line of numbers, while in Fig. 5b some are above and others below. Particularly beautiful examples of musical arc diagrams in another English 12th century manuscript can be viewed at the web site of the National Library of Australia. 10

FIG. 5 a and b. Musical arc diagrams from an English 12th century manuscript of Boethius Musica. Figure 5a, left, with arcs only above the line of reference and Fig. 5b, right, with arcs above and below that line.

While there is no explicit evidence there is circumstantial evidence that Boethius invented this type of graphical representation. Alternately, it may have been invented by an early anonymous scribe and was the widely copied. A Boethian style diagram is found in Argyropolus commentary on Porphyrys Isagoge where it is used to show the relationship between the latters system of predicables. 11 Boethian arc diagrams have also been used by the early 17th century English mystic and physician Robert Fludd (1574 1637). In his two-volume work on the cosmos (Utriusque cosmi, 1617-1621) he used the form in several diagrams. 12 A typical example is illustrated in Fig. 6. Here man is shown to be harmonically connected to the cosmos by a triple (spiritual, medium, and material) octave. Each diapason has its own internal harmonic relationships. A few years later Fludd published what appears to be the first printed color circle in a medical book (Medicina catholica, 1629).

FIG. 6. Figure from Robert Fludds Utriusque cosmi demonstrating the harmonius relationship between the three spheres of the cosmos, using the arc diagram style.

KIRCHER AND ZAHN Modified dAguilon diagrams of color were subsequently presented in scientific works by other authors. Best known is that by the German Jesuit and scholar Athanasius Kircher (ca. 1601 1680). Kircher claimed to speak 15 languages and wrote widely on many subjects. Aside from history and science he was also interested in the occult. His book Ars magna lucis et umbrae of 1646 has a characteristically expansive title (all there is to know about light and shadow). 13 Here he presented an improved version of dAguilons arc diagram, having arcs only above the simple colors (Fig. 7). Some of the arcs do double duty in not only identifying tonal mixtures of white and black with chromatic simples but also the hue mixtures of the chromatic simples, and thus depriving the diagram of its internal logic. The middle tonal colors are also identified: for example, a mixture of blue and white forms ash color (cinereus); the mixture of yellow and black results in brown (fuscus). Kircher added a table with correspondences between things and colors. Among these (in the last line) are the strings of the Greek lyra, thereby supporting the classical relationship between music and colors.

FIG. 7. Kirchers 1671 version of dAguilons color mixture diagram with an added table of analogs.

Johannes Zahn (1641 1701) was a German provost of a womens convent and in his spare time occupied himself with mathematics, physics and the occult. In his book on the telescope (Oculus artificialis ) of 1685 he may have offered the first description of the projection of a moving image and of binoculars. He also briefly treated of color and offered what he called a mystagogical version of the Kircherian diagram (Fig. 8a). 14 The arcs have been replaced by triangles. Analogs have been provided for white, the unidentified apex color, and black (e.g., goodness, indifference, and badness). The whole apparatus is set into a mystical baroque landscape. Kirchers cinereus is replaced by a color called aqueus (water-colored). In the second edition of his book (two years before the publication of Newtons Opticks) Zahn had dispensed with the mystical references and the apex color was now identified as gray (cinereus, see Fig. 8b). It is of interest to speculate what Zahns colors may have looked like and Fig. 9 is an interpretation. Clear colors are found on the left while darkish colors are found on the right, with secondary colors filling the interior. It is apparent that such a diagram is not in agreement with our intuitive feeling for color order.

FIG. 8a (left) Detail from Zahns triangular version of Kirchers arc diagram from the first edition of Oculus artificialis of 1685. Fig. 8b The simplified figure of the second edition of 1702.

FIG. 9. Interpretation of the colors in Zahns triangular color diagram.

CONCLUSION With the invention of his musical harmonic diagrams Boethius appears to have initiated the use of graphical representation of complex relationships, a tradition to which the philosopher Descartes has made important contributions and one enjoying widest application today. It was Forsius who, unbeknownst to the wider world, introduced graphical representation to color order while at the identical time dAguilon adapted the Boethian arc diagram for the same purpose. That his text appeared in printed form helped 8

to disseminate this idea widely and resulted in many further and different graphical depictions of color order. References: 1. Forsius SA, Physica, Codex Holmiensis D.6, Royal Library, Stockholm. Translation of relevant section in Parkhurst C and Feller RL, Who invented the color wheel? Color Res Appl 1982;7:217-230. 2. Aguilonius F. Opticorum libri sex. Antwerp: Plantin, 1613. 3. Chalcidius. Platonis Timaeus interprete Chalcidio, J. Wrobel, ed., Leipzig: Taeubner, 1876. 4. Gage J. Color and culture. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993. 5. Aristotle. Sense and sensibility. The complete works of Aristotle, Vol. 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. 6. Swineshead R. Liber calculationum. Manuscript folio 84, Bibliotheca Universitaria, Pavia, Italy 7. Oresme N. Proportio proportionum, Manuscript folio 198. Brgerbibliothek Bern, Switzerland. 8. Boethius A M S. Fundamentals of music, C M Bower, transl. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. 9. Boethius. De institutione musica. Manuscript folio 67. Lambeth Palace Library, Canterbury. 10. Website: nla.gov.au/worldtreasures/html. 11. Porphyrii Phoenicis Isagoge. Basel: 1542. 12. Fludd R. Utriusque cosmi majoris scilicet et minoris metaphysica. Oppenheim: de Bry, 1617, 1621. 13. Kircher A. Ars magna lucis et umbrae. Amsterdam: Jansson und Waesberge, 1671. 14. Zahn J. Oculus artificialis teledioptricus sive telescopium. Wrzburg: Heil, 1685. Second edition Nrnberg: Lochner, 1702.