Practitioners' knowledge versus academic knowledge: Trichromatic printing and physical colour theory in the early 18th century

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Friedrich Steinle
• Subject Area: History of Science
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 575708958

The project deals with the interface between crafts’/ arts’ knowledge and natural science in a particularly striking historical constellation. In the early 18th century, artists' and craftsmen's knowledge of colour came into direct contact and friction with the claims of natural philosophy for the first time. In his colour theory of 1704, Newton had replaced the traditional three-colour theory of artists with a completely different one, but only a short time later, the former celebrated a triumphant success with the first successful full-colour printing based on three primary colors. In the resulting tension, some of the prominent practitioners positioned themselves explicitly, albeit in very different ways - from attempts at demarcation to fierce polemics. For the first time, a practice-based systematization of colours came into direct contact and conflict with academic/natural philosophical claims. The project aims to examine this tension for the first time in terms of its dynamics and its epistemic, social, cultural, and economic aspects. It is about knowledge generation in the context of practical work, about the constellations that led to the examination of optical colour theory, about the temporal and spatial interconnections of materials, objects, and processes that came into dynamic, sometimes conflict-laden contact here, and, overall, about the examination of practical knowledge in relation to the different kinds of knowledge claims of the natural sciences. The historical investigation focuses on the activities and reflections of the three- (or four-) colour printer Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty, on the resonance in the textbooks of experimental physics, and finally on the corresponding entries in the French Encyclopédie, which explicitly claimed to present both practical knowledge and natural philosophy. The project will not only explore the emergence of a constellation of knowledge that was to shape colour discussions well into the 19th century, but also significantly enrich the discussion on the interaction of practical knowledge and academic knowledge with a case of open controversy.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants