Historical Pers p e c t i v e The Logic of Color: Theory and Graphics in
Christine Ladd-Franklin’s a b s t r a c t
In the years after 1870, two Explanation of Color Vision theories of color vision vied for primacy: the “trichromatic” the- ory and a four-color theory, also known as an “opponent” theory of color vision. Among scientists Jeremy Kargon who participated in this debate, mathematician Christine Ladd- Franklin (1847–-1930) made How very ready we all are, to form more detailed pictures in the special use of graphics as a moment, when we have caught hold of a thoroughly good and rhetorical template for reasoning and explanation. Her later work sound idea. included figures modeled upon chemical reactions thought to be novel graphic representations of —Erwin Schrödinger, letter to logical relationships to describe Christine Ladd-Franklin, 23 June 1929 [1] fundamental to visual processes chemical reactions fundamental (Color Plate B). to visual processes. These and Scholarship about the relationship between the visual arts and In Ladd-Franklin’s view, the de- other illustrations demonstrate, color theory tends to focus on the period before physiological velopment of human vision from in retrospect, how innovation in graphic notation can underlie models of color vision converged toward consensus, if not ac- earlier dichromatic and achromatic shifts in the practice and percep- tual agreement. Earlier theories had often reflected notions of senses suggested an analogous, tion of science. some “universal order,” to which many artists of various media staged process of photosensitive have always been attracted. By the end of the 19th century, molecules within the human eye’s however, most theorists had come to accept that color was retina [3]. The chemical makeup of (merely) a phenomenon of biology-based perception, not the these molecules would account for the range of sensitivities embodiment of idealized principles. documented by Helmholtz and his followers; furthermore, The period between 1870 and 1900 was crucial in this con- discrete color-sensitive elements within each molecule could ceptual transition. During this time, two theories of color possibly dissociate and recombine in alternative permutations vision vied for primacy: the “trichromatic” theory (typically to effect the “opponent” color perception for which Hering’s ascribed to the physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz and, be- theory accounted. Unlike explanations of these other theo- fore him, physician Thomas Young) and a four-color theory, ries, for which illustrations were exclusively representations also known as an “opponent” theory of color vision (ascribed to another physiologist, Ewald Hering). Advocates for both sides created elaborate biological explanations for their cause; the increasing precision and complexity of these and later science-based theories of color vision may have discouraged artists’ continued recourse to color theory. John Gage, for in- stance, ends his comprehensive survey Color and Culture with the observation that modernism’s impulse toward abstraction reflects this disengagement [2]. However, if, as Gage would have it, artists derived less and less inspiration from the color theories of scientists, scientists themselves continued to de- pend upon artists’ techniques for the essential purposes of explanation and visualization. Among theories proposed to address the Helmholtz-Hering debate, one in particular testifies to the importance of graph- ics as a rhetorical template for science discourse. Conceived in 1892 by the American mathematician Christine Ladd-Franklin (1847–1930), the Development Theory of the Colour Sensa- tions drew upon disciplines (such as evolutionary biology and symbolic logic) far removed from that period’s typical discussions about color vision. Ladd-Franklin’s later essays de- pended, moreover, upon the use of a “logic graph” to describe
Jeremy Kargon (architect), School of Architecture and Planning, CBEIS 218, Morgan State University, 1700 East Cold Spring Lane, Baltimore, MD 21251, U.S.A. Fig. 1. Diagram of the human eye, with other figures, from Isaac Email:
©2014 ISAST doi:10.1162/LEON_a_00517 LEONARDO, Vol. 47, No. 2, pp. 151–157, 2014 151
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_00517 by guest on 02 October 2021 of things or of quantitative data, Ladd- ena, which represented (within the each principal color” [10]. With direct Franklin’s writings included figures mod- limits of printed media) how some- response only to three colors, Young as- eled upon methods of logical reasoning thing might appear to a human sub- serted, the eye is able to perceive all pos- and induction. First and foremost, Ladd- ject; sible colors; this proposition was taken Franklin demanded that researchers 3. illustrations of color-ordering sys- up with quantitative precision in the grasp the distinction between “fact” and tems, which might include a color early 1850s by Helmholtz, the mathema- “theory.” Indeed, her most enduring gamut or a color space, either of tician Hermann Günther Grassman and, legacy for color science may have been which depended upon unique in 1857, the British physicist James Clerk epistemological—righting, in her words, propositions about the range of Maxwell. Afterwards, following Maxwell the “psychophysical perpendicularity, or color and color vision; (and Young before him), Helmholtz topsy-turveyness” [4] of so many previ- 4. illustrations for readers’ use in com- adopted a triangular diagram to depict ous inquiries into the nature of the color parative experiments, by which an the color gamut, the effective complete- sense. Her use of figures demonstrates, author’s statements about color ness of which was an important point in therefore, how innovation in graphic perceptions may be verified among support of his argument [11] (Fig. 2). notation can underlie meta-theoretical a wider audience. Many observers were aware, however, ideas about science. Historical accounts of color theory that the human perception of color was make clear the diversity of approaches. fraught with inconsistency. The seem- Most diagrams in Isaac Newton’s Opticks, ingly luminous effect of pressure upon A Taxonomy of Graphic for instance, presented color as a physi- the eye, for instance, had been noted by Representations and cal property of light. Newton qualified the ancient Greeks; investigators such as Theories of Color Vision this emphasis only once, in passing [6], Giovanni Battista Morgagni in 1719 and What Ladd-Franklin jokingly called and in the book’s lone diagram of the John Elliott in 1780 documented the “topsy-turveyness” was the result of two human eye all anatomical elements were existence of such effects in the absence parallel theoretical trends. On the one reduced to geometric shapes (Fig. 1). of light. At the turn of the 19th century hand, belief in the objective existence of For Newton the eye was merely a pas- came Goethe, whose essays on color at- color reflected a persistent mechanism sive organ in the act of perception: “For tacked Newton’s analytical methods in that permeated European thinking well accordingly as these Pictures are perfect favor of intense description and intro- into the 19th century. On the other hand, or imperfect, the Object is seen perfectly spection. For Goethe, the qualitative un- evident inconsistencies among color per- or imperfectly” [7]. Some later writers, derstanding of Nature took precedence ceptions could be conflated with a prin- following Newton’s own lead in Opticks over the quantitative [12]; he tried to cipled embrace of subjectivity, reflecting [8], linked light’s structure to music’s. position his observations within an id- sensibilities also identified with Roman- Most scientists, however, focused upon iosyncratic Naturphilosophie, by which ticism. Both trends might coexist in the light’s material nature and on com- diverse phenomena might result from views of individual scientists; in general, peting theories of its corpuscular or an essential phenomenon—colors, for in- however, the former has generally been wave-like behavior. Before the end of stance, from light. But Goethe’s theoreti- seen to lead from Newton to Hermann the 18th century, dye chemist George cal premise reached back to Aristotelian von Helmholtz; the latter, if tenuously, Palmer proposed a trichromatic model ideas about light’s encounter with dark- through Goethe to Ewald Hering [5]. In of vision, by which “the surface of the ness [13], and so his specific conclusions either case, graphics served consistently retina is composed of particles of three were rarely taken up by later scientists. to promote scientists’ explicit proposi- different kinds, analogous to the three An important exception was Goethe’s tions—and implicit beliefs—about color rays of light; and each of these particles account of simultaneous and successive vision. One may categorize such graphics is moved by his own ray” [9]. Physician contrast, which he explained by way of as follows: Thomas Young presented in 1802 a simi- “polarity” (Fig. 3). 1. physiological diagrams, which rep- lar theory, according to which, he wrote, Similar conclusions, more rigorously resented biological structures; “each sensitive filament of the nerve demonstrated, were presented in 1839 2. illustrations of subjective phenom- may consist of three portions, one for by Michel Eugène Chevreul, whose bril-
Fig. 2. (left) “Mixing the Colours in Different Proportions,” from Thomas Young, A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechani- cal Arts (London: Joseph Johnson, 1807), Fig. 427, Plate XXX; (middle) “The Relations of the Colours,” from James Clerk Maxwell, “On the Theory of Compound Colours, and the Colours of the Spectrum,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 150 (1860): Figure 5, Plate 1; (right) “All Colours that are Miscible from the Colours of the Spectrum,” Fig. 22, from Hermann von Helmholtz, Helmholtz’s Treatise on Physiological Optics (Washington: The Optical Society of America, 1924), p. 145.
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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_00517 by guest on 02 October 2021 Fig. 3. “Coloured Objects Displaced by Refraction,” from Fig. 4. (top) “Colours with White”; (bottom) “Colours and Black,” Goethe’s Theory of Colours, tr. Lock Eastlake (London: John from M.E. Chevreul, Contrast of Colour, tr. John Spanton (London: Murray, 1840), Plate 3, Figures 1 and 2. (The George Peabody Routledge, Warnes, and Routledge, 1859), Plates VIII and IX. Library, The Sheridan Libraries, The Johns Hopkins University) (The George Peabody Library, The Sheridan Libraries, The Johns Hopkins University)
liant illustrations raised the effect of quantitative metrics for either stimuli or tion of human vision was sensitive, their color contrast to the status of an aesthetic observations (Fig. 5). exchanges were more essentially about and physical principle [14] (Fig. 4). But Beginning in 1870, Ewald Hering ex- the relationship among observation, the key figure inspired by Goethe’s work tended Purkyn˘e’s work concerning the theory and the scientific understanding was a Czech physiologist, Jan Evangelista basis of sensation through a wide range of perception [18]. It was to coordinate Purkyn˘e, whose precise classification of of experiments on nerve and muscle these two levels of discourse that Ladd- subjective phenomena laid the basis for physiology, temperature regulation and Franklin would enter the debate; it was, neurology and experimental psychology. vision. Underlying these efforts was Her- later on, to demonstrate the consistent Among other achievements, Purkyn˘e is ing’s concept of “metabolic equilibrium,” character of her arguments that she remembered today for the eponymous according to which biological systems would introduce a fifth kind of graphic, effect by which object color apparently tend towards chemical balance once the logic graph. shifts toward the blue as illumination lev- diverted by external stimuli [16]. Con- els decrease, a phenomenon for which sistent with this reciprocal relationship early theories of color vision failed to ac- between an organism and its sensoria, An Alternative Theory count. His interest in such observations Hering proposed a theory of color vision of Color Vision reflected Goethe’s enormous influence. that described “opponent” stimuli in the Ladd-Franklin’s proposal for a Develop- However, as Purkyn˘e’s biographers have form of two color pairs, blue-yellow and ment Theory of the Colour Sensations put it, “whereas Goethe had attempted red-green, which he arranged as cardi- derived from her first-hand experience to replace physicalism with phenomenol- nal points around a circle. He argued for in the laboratories of Hering’s and Helm- ogy, Purkyn˘e sought to emphasize the “four [and not three] outstanding color holtz’s supporters, beginning in 1891. physiological dimension of perception” loci in the series of hues which make up” She had earlier studied a problem of [15]. Illustrations in Purkyn˘e’s earliest the gamut of perceived colors [17]; in geometric optics, the horoptor, which de- works indicate his effort to rationalize, contrast to Helmholtz’s physics-based scribes the spatial range within a subject’s through visual means, the subjective ex- explanations, Hering’s pointed toward field of binocular vision for which a single periences that Goethe and others had physiological “principle.” Thus although image is perceived. With her 1887 paper described largely verbally. By 1840 such Helmholtz and Hering’s disagreement on the topic, published in the American images illuminated the way toward an concerned, superficially, the number Journal of Psychology [19], Ladd-Franklin objective physiology, well in advance of of colors to which the essential func- also wrote two lengthy reviews: first, of
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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_00517 by guest on 02 October 2021 Hering’s recent color experiments; and of her husband, mathematician Fabian sensation can therefore now be present second, of another scientist’s investiga- Franklin. Ladd-Franklin traveled with separately (under the influence of three tion of the color-sense of animals. The him to Germany, where she arranged to different parts of the spectrum respec- tively), and they severally cause the sensa- very next year, Ladd-Franklin published work with George E. Müller, a pioneer tions of red, green, and blue. But when no fewer than 13 separate contributions, of experimental psychology and Her- all three of these substances are present each of which presented an interpreta- ing’s protégé. Ladd-Franklin moved at once, they recombine to produce the tion of recent experiments. The next next to Berlin and to the laboratory of exciter of the grey sensation, and thus it happens that the objective mixing of year found Ladd-Franklin already ne- Arthur König, a disciple of Helmholtz. three colours, in proper proportions, gotiating carefully between Hering’s It was in Berlin that she attended most gives a sensation of no colour at all, but and Helmholtz’s positions. In a review closely to the anatomy of the eye and its only white [24]. of Hering’s 1890 critique of Helmholtz, biochemical makeup. Following the lead In her proposal, Ladd-Franklin sought she wrote, “Helmholtz considers that of ophthalmologist Franciscus Donders to bridge “material” and “psychological” the experiments with colored shadows [23], Ladd-Franklin came to believe that facts: the retina’s special sensitivity to show conclusively the influence of the a process of chemical dissociation might three distinct wavelengths of light and judgment in producing simultaneous account for the varying retinal responses most human subjects’ perception of four contrast. Hering, by more careful experi- across the spectrum of frequencies as “unitary” colors (blue/yellow and red/ ments, makes it plain that this is not the well as for the selective nature of typical green). Ladd-Franklin explained, too, case” [20]. Her account of the debate at human color-blindness patterns. the range of vision’s nonstandard be- this point was pragmatic, acknowledging Ladd-Franklin imagined the following haviors, such as simultaneous contrast. Hering’s superior presentation of physi- scenario: Unique in her theory, however, was its ological and psychological facts but re- In its earliest stage of development, vi- etiology, which distinguished the Devel- maining skeptical of his wider “belief that sion consisted of nothing but a sensation opment Theory from previous theories the sensations of black and white (and of grey (if we use the word to cover the of vision. In her account, the sequence of of the opposite colors) are the psycho- whole series of black-grey-white). This sensation of grey was brought about by molecular reactions would parallel their logical aspect of anabolic and metabolic the action upon the nerve-ends of a cer- historical, “evolutionary” developmental processes respectively” [21]. tain chemical substance, set free . . . un- history. Ladd-Franklin pointed to the dis- While the period’s (mostly male) der the influence of light. In the course crete range of color sensitivities through scientists and administrators accorded of the development of the visual sense, an abridged natural history: Achromatic Ladd-Franklin neither an official posi- the molecule to be chemically decom- posed became so differentiated as to be vision began for “low animals” of “Car- tion nor a laboratory of her own [22], capable of losing only a part of its excit- boniferous times” [25] as well as for an occasion for actual experimental ing substance at once; three chemical nocturnal animals; dichromatic (yellow- work came in 1891 with the sabbatical constituents of the exciter of the grey- and-blue) vision emerged next, since “in the Cretaceous period came in to- gether bees and coloured flowers.” Only Fig. 5. Diagrams of visual effects from Purkinje, J., Beobachtungen und Versuche zur Physiologie der Sinne [Observations and Experiments on the Physiology of the Senses] (1825), Plate III. later would sensitivity to yellow diversify (Institute of the History of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University) toward sensitivity to red and green. As Ladd-Franklin explained,
It is only if one keeps in mind this devel- opment of the colour-sense that one un- derstands . . . how it is that red and green when physically mixed revert to that out of which they were developed—namely yellow; and that yellow and blue (or, what is the same thing, red and green and blue) revert when physically mixed to the white out of which they were devel- oped. In this way it becomes comprehen- sible that the reddish-greens vanish and produce yellow—that the bluish-yellows (which no human being has ever seen) vanish and produce white. This whole phenomenon of the disappearance and appearance of colours is thus easily ex- plained as a simple chemical reaction between photochemical products in the retina [26].
This premise had no parallel in the work of Helmholtz or his followers, for whom rejection of Naturphilosophie tended to obscure questions about morphological drift [27]. Hering’s pub- lished writing on vision does not engage this topic directly, emphasizing instead organisms’ behavior and equilibrium [28]. That the eye’s mechanisms bore
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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_00517 by guest on 02 October 2021 Fig. 6. Christine Ladd-Franklin, “The colour molecule (hypothetical) in three successive stages of development” [3, p. 53].
the trace of their evolutionary history, thesis, “On the Algebra of Logic,” in wedge, sign of exclusion” [33]. In the however, dovetailed well with Hering’s which she examined notation used to context of her subject matter, this state- beliefs about the organization of living represent statements of logic and their ment is not meant naïvely. Peirce had matter [29]. interrelationships. Ladd-Franklin’s es- already speculated broadly about the In her earliest published presen- say extended previously existing systems relationship between sign and meaning tation of the Development Theory, through the introduction of two alter- and had, as early as 1868, linked philo- Ladd-Franklin made no recourse to il- native symbols, “one which is particular sophical logic to the modern concept of lustration, with the telling exception of when positive, and universal when nega- [semiotics], that is, the “the quasi-neces- two matrix-like diagrams representing tive” [32]. Ladd-Franklin compared sary, or formal, doctrine of signs” [34]. permutations among the molecules to these two symbols, ∨ (“is-partly”) and A related example was Sylvester’s writ- which she ascribed color sensitivity. For ∨− (“is-wholly-not”), to symbols used by ing about “quantics,” in which Ladd- her 1902 entry “Vision” in the Dictionary other logicians and explained their tech- Franklin’s professor of mathematics of Philosophy and Psychology [30], Ladd- nical advantages. Throughout her essay, proposed an explicit analogy between Franklin prepared a line drawing, akin she alluded to symbols’ visual character; mathematics and chemistry. For Sylves- to a mathematician’s graph, to depict the she wrote, for example, “The sign ∨− is a ter, what made such an analogy possible stages of color-sensitive molecules’ dis- sociation (Fig. 6). In the next decade, Ladd-Franklin Fig. 7. Christine Ladd-Franklin, The Development Theory of Color, from Ladd-Franklin, would elaborate this diagram and em- “The Evolution Theory of the Colour Sensations,” circa 1914, from Colour and Colour phasize its interrelationships by applying Theories [3], p. 129. In her caption to this figure, Ladd-Franklin explained chemical processes in algebraic terms: “S , the colour-sensation receptors, in three successive stages of develop- color. The intellectual roots of such dia- N ment. EN, the several specific nerve excitant substances for the five specific light sensations.” grams may be found in Ladd-Franklin’s See also Ladd-Franklin’s color version of this diagram in Color Plate B No. 2. unique educational background. Ladd- Franklin’s graduate instructors and peers were among the first Americans to grapple explicitly with the relationship between perception and cognition; fur- thermore, her education and research placed her squarely within a nascent “pragmatic” tradition for which the for- mal structure of science was certainly fundamental and—potentially—demon- strable by visual means (Fig. 7).
Logic, Mind and Graphs Christine Ladd-Franklin had applied in 1878 to the newly established Johns Hopkins University, but her application for enrollment was initially denied [31]. She was eventually allowed to attend classes with the famous mathematician James J. Sylvester and, subsequently, with the logician and philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. Under Peirce’s direction, Ladd-Franklin prepared her
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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_00517 by guest on 02 October 2021 Fig. 8. Illustrations from J.J. Sylvester, “On an Application of the New Atomic Theory to the Graphical Representation of the Invariants and Covariants of Binary Quantics,” in American Journal of Mathematics, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1878): Plate I. (Special Collections, The Sheridan Libraries, The Johns Hopkins University)
were “pure relations of form,” which later generations of philosophers, was Hering’s “opposition theory” found sup- otherwise “admit of exact arithmetical nevertheless well known to his students port in evidence about complex combi- relationships” [35]. His best-known essay and regular correspondents, including nations of post-ocular nerve pathways on the subject, published the year Ladd- Christine Ladd-Franklin [39]. [40]. Nevertheless, Ladd-Franklin had Franklin began her studies at Hopkins, earlier corresponded actively with some started with the following account: Conclusion: “A Theory of the foremost young researchers. What of Color Theories” and remained always at issue was how anyone Casting about . . . to discover some means who grappled with the problem of color of conveying an intelligible conception “Practical Logic” vision should structure his or her reason- of the objects of modern algebra . . . and Ladd-Franklin’s teachers and colleagues impressed . . . with a feeling of affinity if ing. For Ladd-Franklin, scientists’ flawed had sought a visual basis for the logi- not identity of object between the inquiry epistemology was the basis of continual cal imagination and had established a into compound radicals and the search scientific disagreement. As she wrote, “So for “Grundformen” or irreducible invari- particular graphic grammar for its sup- hopelessly beyond the pale of reason, in ants, I was agreeably surprised to find . . . port. Ladd-Franklin herself—a logician fact, does each of these principal theories distinctly pictured on my mental retina a working among physicists, biologists and chemico-graphical image serving to em- seem . . . that no fruitful discussion seems physiologists—found it necessary to in- body and illustrate the relations of these possible between their rival adherents” vert this relationship. Her theory of color derived algebraical forms [36]. [41]. Under the title “Theory of Colour vision described instead a chemical pro- Theories,” she outlined the basic criteria Referring to a generalized form, cess structured as if by a series of logical of what a useful theory should entail: Grundform can mean a basic shape whose propositions. characteristics are shared by elements For 30 years after her experience in 1. . . . it is not desirable that any theory within a category; as such, Grundform is a Müller’s and König’s laboratories, Ladd- should resolutely ignore a large propor- primarily visual notion, even among dis- Franklin defended her theory against tion of the plain facts. . . . ciplines (such as mathematics) for which 2. It should be the first object of any good more prominent proponents of either theory to provide itself with a suitable ter- representation is primarily symbolic. In Helmholtz or Hering. At the time of her minology for the facts which lie within this case, Sylvester referred not to typeset death in 1930, however, experimental its domain. equations but to compositions of lines, science had made little fundamental 3. For any theory regarding the connex- ion between a series of psychical facts letters and graphic projections of three- progress to resolve decisively the debate dimensional forms, borrowed from Sir and series of physical facts, the principle between the two camps. Only in the mid- of psychophysical parallelism must ob- Edward Frankland’s 1866 Lecture Notes for 1950s did a new synthesis arise, by which tain. Chemical Student (Fig. 8). Sylvester called these diagrams “graphs,” in perhaps the earliest use of this sense of the term [37]. In 1885, a more complete treatment of Fig. 9. “A discrete heap, each graphical unit admitting of separate definition,” from A.B. graphs’ relationship to logical form was Kempe [38] p. 10: Figure 7. given by Alfred Bray Kempe (another cor- respondent of Sylvester’s), who observed that “two [scientific] systems which are of the same form have precisely the same properties, although the garbs in which they are severally clothed may . . . lead us to place the systems under very different categories” [38] (Fig. 9). Peirce himself took up this approach for his own thinking about logic, de- picted in later publications by “existen- tial graphs.” Following Sylvester, Peirce sought a visual support for his mathemat- ical imagination and looked to chemistry for its symbolic nomenclature. Peirce’s graphical method, although obscure at the time and hardly influential among
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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_a_00517 by guest on 02 October 2021 4. In particular . . . one must not . . . 4. Christine Ladd-Franklin, “Practical Logic”; in cist,” in David Cahan, ed., Hermann von Helmholtz and make use of one and the same concep- Ladd-Franklin [3] p. 171; originally published in the Foundations of Nineteenth-Century Science (Berkeley: tion to explain two totally different sets Psychological Review, Vol. 23 (1916): pp. 242–245. University of California Press, 1993), p. 294. of phenomena; nor, obversely . . . must 5. George Wells, Goethe and the Development of Science, 28. See Hurvich and Jameson [16], p. xxvi. one and the same conscious experience 1750–1900 (Alphen aan den Rijn: Sijthoff & Noord- be attached . . . to two different physi- hoff International Publishers, 1978), pp. 124–126. 29. Anita Kasabova, On Autobiographical Memory ological hypotheses. (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 5. . . . no constituent element of a theory 6. Isaac Newton, Opticks: Book I (London: William 2009), p. 40. Innys, 1730), pp. 108–109. is of any great positive value unless it ex- 30. Christine Ladd-Franklin, “Vision,” in James Mark plains more than one phenomenon at 7. See Newton [6], 13. Baldwin, ed., Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology once [42]. (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1902), pp. 8. See Newton [6], 134. 767ff. As she wrote later, “I cannot then too 9. George Palmer, “Theory of Color and Vision,” in 31. Letter from D.C. Gilman to Christine Ladd, 26 strongly urge upon the scientist the study David MacAdam, ed., Sources of Color Science (Cam- April 1878, in the Christine Ladd-Franklin and Fa- bridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1970), 41. Originally bian Franklin Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript of practical logic as it is exhibited in the published in Palmer, Theory of Color and Color Vision Library, Columbia University, New York. good, but more especially in the bad, the- (London: Leacroft, 1777). 32. Christine Ladd, “On the Algebra of Logic,” in ories of colour” [43]. For Ladd-Franklin, 10. Thomas Young, “On the Theory of Light and Col- Charles Sanders Peirce, ed., Studies in Logic by Mem- conflation of logical principles lay at the ors,” in MacAdam [9], p. 51. Originally published in bers of the Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore: 1883), Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London p. 25. heart of the Hering-Helmholtz debate; 92 (1802): pp. 20–71. her legacy, its resolution, came not from 33. See Ladd [31]. 11. Hermann von Helmholtz, Helmholtz’s Treatise on her own scientific work but from the in- Physiological Optics (Washington: The Optical Society 34. C.S. Peirce, Collected Papers, ed. Charles Harts- creased attention to “practical logic” by of America, 1924), Vol. II, p. 145. horne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933) 2, §2.227. American researchers including Albert 12. Frederick Burwick, The Damnation of Newton (Ber- Munsell [44], Dean Judd [45] and, later, lin: Walter Gruyter & Co., 1986), p. 5. 35. J.J. Sylvester, “On an Application of the New Leo Hurvich and Dorothea Jameson Atomic Theory to the Graphical Representation of 13. Richard Sorabji, “Aristotle, Mathematics, and the Invariants and Covariants of Binary Quantics,” [46]. Colour,” The Classical Quarterly 22 (1972): p. 294. in American Journal of Mathematics 1 (1878): p. 64. The role of graphics among these cri- 14. M.E. Chevreul, The Principles of Harmony and 36. See Sylvester [35]. teria is implicit, but crucial. Science de- Contrast of Colours, tr. Charles Martel (London: Long- pends, of course, upon the presentation man, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855), pp. 11ff. 37. Thomas Hankins, “Blood, Dirt, and Nomograms: A Particular History of Graphs,” Isis 90 (1999): p. 52. of facts. Their interconnection is often 15. Nicholas Wade and Josef Brožek, Purkinje’s Vi- best expressed through analogy to spatial sion: The Dawning of Neuroscience (Mahwah: Lawrence 38. A.B. Kempe, “A Memoir on the Theory of Math- Erlbaum Associates, 2001), p. 2. ematical Form,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal order, since the sense of sight affords all Society of London 177 (1886): p. 4. persons with immediate grasp of spatial 16. Leo Hurvich and Dorothea Jameson, introduc- tion to Ewald Hering, Outlines of a Theory of the Light 39. Christine Ladd-Franklin, “Charles S. Peirce at the relationships. So it is, therefore, that sci- Sense (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Johns Hopkins,” The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology entists and artists alike choose to depict 1964), p. xiii. and Scientific Methods 13 (1916): pp. 715–722. color perceptions through the agency of 17. See Hering [16], p. 42. 40. Leo Hurvich and Dorothea Jameson, “An Oppo- graphic representation, whether in two, nent-Process Theory of Color Vision,” Psychological 18. R. Steven Turner, In the Eye’s Mind (Princeton: Review 64 (1957), pp. 384–404. three, or even more dimensions. But Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 218ff. graphical methods also hold potential 41. Christine Ladd-Franklin, “Theory of Color Theo- for alternative interpretations. Christine 19. Ladd-Franklin, “A Method for the Experimental ries”; see Ladd-Franklin [3]. Originally published in Determination of the Horopter,” The American Jour- Comptes Rendus du VIe Congrès International de Psycholo- Ladd-Franklin sought, first of all, to il- nal of Psychology, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1887): p. 103. gie (Genève: 1909), pp. 698ff. lustrate the logic of color. 20. Christine Ladd-Franklin, review of Ewald Her- 42. See Ladd-Franklin [41] 115–117. ing, “Über die Theorie des simultanen Constrastes 43. Christine Ladd-Franklin, “Practical Logic”; see Acknowledgments von Helmholtz,” Pflügers Archiv, Vols. 40, 41, 43, pub- lished in The American Journal of Psychology 3 (1890): Ladd-Franklin [3], p. 184. Originally published in Psychological Review 29 (1922), 180ff. The author would like to thank Leonardo’s referees p. 199. for their comments and suggestions and to acknowl- 21. Christine Ladd-Franklin, review of Ewald Her- 44. Ladd-Franklin’s earliest discussions with Munsell edge the Dean’s Office of the School of Architecture ing, “Über die von v. Kries wider die Theorie der are documented by Munsell himself. See the entry and Planning, Morgan State University, for its sup- Gegenfarben erhobenen Einwände,” Pflüger’s Arhiv, for 24 September 1908, in Alfred Munsell, A.H. Mun- port during the research of this paper. XLII, u. XLIII, published in The American Journal of sell Diary: Volume B, 1908 through February 1918, p. 237. Psychology 3 (1890): p. 203. An on-line version of Munsell’s diaries is maintained by the Munsell Color Science Laboratory, Rochester References and Notes 22. Laurel Furumoto, “Christine Ladd-Franklin’s Institute of Technology:
Kargon, The Logic of Color: Christine Ladd-Franklin 157
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