271 Years Before Pantone, A Dutch Artist Mixed And Described Every Color Imaginable In 800 Page Book

In 1692, an artist known only as “A. Boogert” wrote a book in Dutch about mixing watercolors. He didn’t just begin the book with info about color usage in painting, but he went on to explain the method for creating specific hues and changing the tone by adding one, two, or three parts water. The detail put into this book is unfathomable. Click the image below to see the magnitude of this awesomeness (but be sure to scroll down for more images and info about the book).

Click image to see it in full size

Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau spans nearly 800 completely handwritten and painted pages and was likely the most comprehensive guide to paint and color of its time. Medieval book historian Erik Kwakkel translated part of the introduction and explains that the color book was intended as an educational guide. Oddly, however, there was only one copy of the book. Did the artist just create it for himself? I guess we’ll never know.

Here are some of the exquisite images. More info about the book, as well as a link to the gentleman who is studying it, are below the images.

panton colors book boogert dutch watercolors Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau panton colors book boogert dutch watercolors Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau panton colors book boogert dutch watercolors Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau panton colors book boogert dutch watercolors Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau

You can view the book in high resolution here, and you can read a description of it here. The book is currently held at the Bibliothèque Méjanes in Aix-en-Provence, France.

via Erik Kwakkel:

I encountered this Dutch book from 1692 in a French database today and it turns out to be quite special. For one thing, no Dutch scholar appears to have published on it, or even to know about it. Moreover, the object is special because it provides an unusual peek into the workshop of 17th-century painters and illustrators. In over 700 pages of handwritten Dutch, the author, who identifies himself as A. Boogert (Pic 2), describes how to make watercolour paints. He explains how to mix the colours and how to change their tone by adding “one, two or three portions of water”. To illustrate his point he fills each facing page with various shades of the colour in question (lower image). To top it he made an index of all the colours he described, which in itself is a feast to look at (Pics 1 and 3). In the 17th century, an age known as the Golden Age of Dutch Painting, this manual would have hit the right spot. It makes sense, then, that the author explains in the introduction that he wrote the book for educational purposes. Remarkably, because the manual is written by hand and therefore literally one of a kind, it did not get the “reach” among painters – or attention among modern art historians – it deserves.

 

Tiffany Willis Clark is a fifth-generation Texan and the founder and editor-in-chief of The Best Stuff Online, AmReading.com, and a few other websites. In 2011, she made the decision to pursue her dreams and become a full-time writer. Tiff is obsessed with finding the most interesting, coolest stuff online and sharing it with the world. Connect with her on LinkedIn, follow her on Twitter, and like her Facebook page.