Sir Isaac Newton developed the first circular diagram of colors in 1666.
Our modern understanding of light and color begins with Isaac Newton (1642-1726) and a series of experiments that he publishes in 1672. He is the first to understand the rainbow he refracts white light with a prism, resolving it into its component colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.
This circular diagram became the model for many color systems of the 18th and 19th centuries. Claude Boutet’s painter’s circle of 1708 was probably the first to be based on Newton’s circle.
