Max Becke

The objective of Becke’s system is «to examine the laws of material colouration and the effect of colours». In other words, to cope with the subtractive mixtures of coloured materials just as effectively as physicists deal with the additive mixtures of coloured light. To this end, he constructs a «natural trichromatic solid» with eight different colours at each of its corners. The cube is arranged with a vertical grey axis which has white at the tip and black at the base. From white, the cube’s edges extend towards the three «original-colours» of pure yellow, pure blue and pure purple; from black, the edges run to the «main colours» of full green, full violet and full scarlet. The construction incorporates main axes and counter-pole axes. (Detailed text)


Date: Chemist-colourist Max Becke, director of the textile industry’s research institute in Vienna, published a «Natural Theory of Colours» in 1924 in Vienna.

Country of origin: Austria

Basic colours: Three proto- or original-colours: pure yellow, pure blue and pure purple

Form: Cube

Related systems: Müller I

Bibliography: M. Becke, «Einführung in die natürliche Farbenlehre», Vienna 1924; M. Becke, «Bemerkungen zu dem Vortrage Dr. A. Lauterbach (…) Zur natürlichen Farbenlehre Max Beckes», Melliand’s Textilberichte 7, pp. 501-502 and 8, pp. 596-600 and 9, pp. 676-680 and 10, pp. 753-756 (1925).