Color Interaction

COLOR INTERACTION THROUGH CHEMISTRY

Jules Persoz was a chemist, a scholar of pharmacology, and a global authority on textile dyes. Deeply invested in both the scholarship and industry of dyeing, he convinced textile manufacturers from around the world to contribute hundreds of fabric swatches to illustrate his five-volume treatise on printing cloth. With the swatches on these pages, Persoz demonstrates strategies for manipulating dye interaction through chemistry.  
 
•    Swatch 16 shows that stripes of yellow dye and blue dye are green when they intersect 
•    Swatch 17 uses a blue dye with a chemical ingredient that prevents the yellow dye from adhering. The intersection is therefore blue.  
•    Swatch 18 uses a yellow dye that contains a substance which removes blue dye from the cloth. Only yellow is left in the intersection.  
— Written by Sarah K. Rich (Art History, Center for Virtual/Material Studies)
 
Jules Persoz (France 1805-1868) 
Traité de l’Impression des Tissues
[Treatise on the Printing of Cloth] 
Paris: Victor Masson, 1846