Ogden Nicholas Rood (3 February 1831 in
Danbury, Connecticut – 12 November 1902 in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
) was an American physicist best known for his work in
color theory.
Career
At age 18, Rood became a student at
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
, but after his sophomore year he transferred to
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
(then called the College of New Jersey), where he received his baccalaureate degree in 1852. For the next two years he was successively a graduate student at Yale University, an assistant at the University of Virginia, and an assistant to
Benjamin Silliman
Benjamin Silliman (August 8, 1779 – November 24, 1864) was an early American chemist and science educator. He was one of the first American professors of science, at Yale College, the first person to use the process of fractional distillation ...
. In 1854–1858, he lived in Germany, dividing his time between oil painting and academic studies in Berlin and Munich, working in the laboratory of
Justus von Liebig. In 1858, shortly before returning to the U.S.A., he married Mathilde Prunner of Munich. In 1858 he joined the faculty of the short-lived
Troy University. After the closure of Troy University in 1861, and after a one year absence from the academic world, he attained an appointment as Chair of Physics at
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, a position he held from 1863 until his death. In 1865 Rood was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1869 he became a vice-president of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science.
He was elected as a member to the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 1880.
Legacy
In his book on color theory, ''Modern Chromatics, with Applications to Art and Industry'' (published in 1879, with German and French translations appearing in 1880 and 1881, respectively) Rood divided color into three constants: purity, luminosity, and hue—equivalent to
James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and li ...
's tint, shade, and hue.
As an amateur artist, Rood was a member of the
American Watercolor Society. In 1874 he gave two lectures to the
National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...
in New York on "Modern Optics in Painting". Along with Maxwell and
Michel Eugène Chevreul, Rood's work was an influence on the
Impressionist artists and their successors. The painter
Camille Pissarro defined the aim of the
Neo-Impressionists in a letter: "To seek a modern synthesis of methods based on science, that is, based on M. Chevreul's theory of colour and on the experiments of Maxwell and the measurements of N.O. Rood."
Rood's theory of contrasting colors was particularly influential on
Georges-Pierre Seurat, the founder of Neo-Impressionism and the foremost
Pointillist. Rood suggested that small dots or lines of different colors, when viewed from a distance, would blend into a new color. He believed that the
complementary color
Complementary colors are pairs of colors which, when combined or mixed, cancel each other out (lose hue) by producing a grayscale color like white or black. When placed next to each other, they create the strongest contrast for those two co ...
s of his
color wheel
A color wheel or color circle is an abstract illustrative organization of color hues around a circle, which shows the relationships between primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors etc.
Some sources use the terms ''color wheel'' ...
, when applied in pairs by the artist, would enhance the presence of a painting: "... paintings, made up almost entirely of tints that by themselves seem modest and far from brilliant, often strike us as being rich and gorgeous in colour, while, on the other hand, the most gaudy colours can easily be arranged so as to produce a depressing effect on the beholder.".
William Innes Homer considered Seurat was influenced by passages in Ogden Rood's ''Students' Text-book of Color; Or, Modern Chromatics, with Applications to Art and Industry''.
In his 1912 ''Color Standards and Color Nomenclature'',
Robert Ridgway
Robert Ridgway (July 2, 1850 – March 25, 1929) was an American ornithologist specializing in systematics. He was appointed in 1880 by Spencer Fullerton Baird, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, to be the first full-time curator of bi ...
named four colors for Rood: Rood’s Blue, Rood’s Brown, Rood’s Lavender, and Rood’s Violet.
How Red Is Dragon’s Blood?
by Daniel Lewis, in '' Smithsonian''; published June 24, 2014; retrieved July 16, 2014
Notes
References
* Harrison, Charles, et al. (1998). ''Art in Theory: An Anthology of Changing Ideas''. Blackwell Publishing. .
* Pool, Phoebe (1991) 985
Year 985 ( CMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Summer – Henry II (the Wrangler) is restored as duke of Bavaria by Empress Theoph ...
''Impressionism''. London: Thames and Hudson. .
* Rood, Ogden (1881) 879
__NOTOC__
Year 879 ( DCCCLXXIX) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* April 10 – King Louis the Stammerer dies at Compiègne, after a reign ...
''Students' Text-book of Color; Or, Modern Chromatics, with Applications to Art and Industry''. New York: D. Appleton and Company.
External links
*
*
* Ogden Rood (1879
''Modern chromatics''
- digital facsimile from the Linda Hall Library
The Linda Hall Library is a privately endowed American library of science, engineering and technology located in Kansas City, Missouri, sitting "majestically on a urban arboretum." It is the "largest independently funded public library of scien ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rood, Ogden
American physicists
1831 births
1902 deaths
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Yale University alumni
Princeton University alumni