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)
«There is only one correct colour system, and that is the three-dimensional system of nature with its three separate and independent effects of the three natural and original colours of pure yellow, pure blue and pure purple as organising and guiding principles which order all colours» — such was Max Becke’s creed.
Becke was director of the textile industry’s research institute in Vienna, and in 1924 presented a «Natural Theory of Colours» in which he demonstrated with total conviction «that the scientific basis for the theory of colours is without question laid down in an irrefutable law of nature». Becke establishes that «the innermost essence of colours» shows through «as the objective properties of matter» and that «inevitably, through the process of sight in combination with this property, colour terms identical to the colours» will be formed. The justification of his «natural colour equation xyz» is thus inferred «because only this equation can accurately and scientifically express the actual relationships between cause and effect in the natural order of events.»
Becke’s stirring enthusiasm for the omnipotence of nature has long been relegated to the distant past, and in spite of all its proclaimed clarity and exactness, his «natural» theory of colours remains just one of many. As stated, it operates with three basic colours, which the Viennese chemist and colourist also concisely names using pigments. Pure yellow should appear «as chinolin yellow on wool», pure blue «somewhat less pierced with green, as patent blue on wool» and purple should be «something like sulphurhodamine B extra on wool».
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» in planar form in which «the totality of the material colours in the world around us, and the notional colour terms which are identical to them, is characterised and organised by means of their constructive content, according to the three original or basic colours — pure yellow, pure blue and pure purple». Becke then goes on to describe both the construction and his idea more exactly. With our modern attitudes, however, we may be surprised at the simplicity with which the chemist sees the notional world within us:
«The natural colour-solid — shown as a cube — can be separated into three systems of vertical square surfaces of pure yellow, pure blue and pure purple, which are graded from 0 to 120. Each material colour in the outer world is, as a notional colour-term, mathematically and geometrically arranged at the intersection of the three basic colour surfaces to which they have been allocated as a result of the inevitable disintegration of their objective general effect into these three independent and objective partial effects during the process of sight. The allocation of each colour attains clear expression through the colour equation xyz , as entered into the triangular shape.»
Using this method of notation, white becomes 000, black 120120120, with the three pure colours being expressed as two zero’s and a 120. Becke refers to them as «one third colours», and middle grey is characterised as three times 60.
Becke has a few attractive sounding names for the colour mixtures, such as peacock blue, daylight blue or pine green, but we shall not go into them here. His trichomatic solid contains four so-called counterpole-axes running from white to black, from pure yellow to full violet, from pure blue to scarlet, and from pure purple to full green. The complementary pairs are thus also included. If we rearrange the chromatic colours — which are dominant in Becke’s cube — adjacently at angles of 120° and describe them as energy sources whose effect is revealed by means of concentric circles, we obtain the right-hand figure, which is better able to underline the tension existing between the colours than the strictly cube-shaped construction. But the best illustration of this approach to colour is Becke’s own view: «Colour is energy bound up in material.»
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).