Photographic Illustrations

Abstract

This chapter introduces Maxwell’s project of color research as a theory of color perception, a mathematical theory of composition of three primary colors in conceptual (“fundamental”), geometrical (“geographical”) and quantitative forms. Maxwell suggested and subsequently carried out a photographic projection, intended as a demonstration of Young’s theory of color perception, with red, green and violet as elementary colors. The idea and the performance are examples of his conception of concrete illustration and part of his method of natural philosophy: to understand and develop the theoretical and abstract mathematical order of physics depends on developing abstract-concrete relations, imaginary or material. Maxwell proceeded through constructions, anchored in embodied and extended modes of cognition linked to the Victorian interest in the artificial construction and representation of the world. Well-known examples are his models, analogies and metaphors.