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I
The fundamental scientific method for measuring or specifying a particular color was established in 1931 by the Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage (CIE).[12] In this system, the proportions of red, green, and blue light required to match a given color are measured with a colorimeter, and the chromaticity coordinates of the color are thus established. The Commission also defined the characteristics of the standard observer and the properties of three standard illuminants. The usual notation of a color consists of two of the chromaticity coordinates plus the luminance value as established by spectrophotometer; these tristimulus values represent dominant wave length, purity, and reflectance. For example, the color of a tomato might be expressed as follows: x = .622; y = .350; Y = 10.2%.[13] However basic this
If the CIE system is not feasible for bibliographical work, the next question to ask is whether or not another more appropriate system exists which is at the same time scientifically accurate and respectable. The alternative to spectrophotometric measurement is visual comparision with material standards, such as a set of color chips (sometimes known as the "ratio method"). Depending on the selection and production of the colors represented in any given set of material standards,
Color-order systems fall into three groups: (a) color-mixture (or additive) systems contain copies of colors established by mixing colored lights in particular proportions with a tristimulus colorimeter; (b) colorant-mixture (or subtractive) systems contain colors produced by mixing colorants (pigments, dyes) in various proportions; (c) color-appearance systems contain colors arrived at by means of psychological
(1) The Munsell System — In 1905 Albert H. Munsell, a Boston artist and teacher, published a little book called A Color Notation, which he later supplemented with a Color Atlas (1915). This notation, with the system which lies behind it, is perhaps the most widely used of the color-order systems. It is readily applicable to diverse fields, and scientists often convert color information to Munsell terms; it is the system described in the Encyclopaedia Britannica's current article on "Colour" (by A. C. Hardy) and officially recommended in 1942 by the American Standards Association, and it is particularly useful for educational purposes.[17] The notation for any color contains three terms, since the eye detects three characteristics of color — hue, brightness, and saturation (parallel to the CIE tristimulus values for dominant wave length, reflectance, and purity); in the Munsell system these qualities are referred to as hue, value, and chroma. With these three "dimensions," a color solid, representing color space, can be envisioned as an irregular sphere: the axis corresponds to the value scale, from black at the south pole to white at the north; perpendicular distances from this axis indicate chroma, from gray near the axis to the pure, fully saturated color at the surface of the sphere; and planes perpendicular to the equator, passing through the axis, represent hue.[18] Ten hue segments (made up of five basic hue names) are marked off around
Another advantage is that the Munsell Color Company of Baltimore publishes a wide variety of excellent color charts and atlases based on this system,[19] and the continued availability of the material is assured by the existence of a nonprofit Munsell Color Foundation, established in 1942.[20] The basic publication is the Munsell Book of Color (1929-43, and later editions), issued in both a library and a pocket edition; it is a loose-leaf book, each leaf representing a constant hue plane, with small chips illustrating the possible chroma steps on a number of value levels. The current (1960) pocket edition (7" x 4½") contains 1000 samples of a matte finish, each ⅝" x ½", and costs $90; it is more suitable for bibliographical work than the library edition, which is not so easily portable and contains glossy chips. However, the chips of the library edition are removable, which is a great advantage; and even the matte chips of the pocket edition are not so satisfactory as cloth samples would be for matching binding colors, and the price is another hindrance to the widespread adoption of either edition for bibliographical work. The same considerations would apply to the Opposite Hues Edition of 1950 ($100) and the Neighboring Hues Edition of the same year ($155), both with glossy chips. Of the many special Munsell charts (Standards for Plastic
(2) The Ostwald System — The other most widely known system is the one developed by Wilhelm Ostwald, 1909 Nobel laureate in chemistry. His theories of color appeared in a long succession of works following Die Farbenfibel (1916) and were translated by J. Scott Taylor in 1931 as Colour Science. The Ostwald solid is a double cone with a vertical black-white axis; thus any hue plane, up to the axis, may be pictured as an equilateral triangle, with its three angles at the points of black, white, and the pure color. There are eight steps from white to black, lettered a, c, e, g, i, l, n, p; from each of these points lines are drawn parallel to the other two sides of the triangle and each intersection is labeled by the letters of the two lines which meet there. Thus the points where the line from e meets the other two sides of the triangle would be ea and pe; and the point of saturation would be pa. The equator of the double cone is divided into twenty-four hue steps, each assigned a number; in this way a color can be specified as 8pa or 10nc, and so on. The system is ingenious and has been widely used in solving problems of decoration and color harmony, but two defects
Between 1932 and 1935 J. Scott Taylor arranged The Ostwald Colour Album, which contained twelve plates in a box and displayed about 1400 colors. But the most widely used collection of color chips based on the Ostwald system is the Container Corporation of America's Color Harmony Manual (1942; 2nd ed., 1946; 3rd ed., 1948) by Egbert Jacobson, Walter C. Granville, and Carl E. Foss. The latest edition contains 949 removable hexagonal chips (one side glossy and the other matte) on loose leaf charts in a zippered portfolio. These features make it extremely convenient, but its price of $150 militates against its choice by bibliographers. In 1950 Helen D. Taylor, Lucille Knoche, and Walter C. Granville published a Descriptive Color Names Dictionary as a supplement to the third edition of the Manual. The color names were selected after a survey of previous dictionaries and of the terms used commercially by various companies; by means of this dictionary the Ostwald symbols may be translated into verbal expressions — 10pl is "deep eggplant" and 16ne is "peacock blue." However, such terms are somewhat too fanciful to give a clear idea of the color to a reader of a descriptive bibliography who does not happen to have the Manual at hand. In short, the Color Harmony Manual is an admirably produced tool, but the Ostwald system on which it is based is not so suitable a standard for bibliography as is the Munsell system.
(3) British Colour Council Dictionary of Colour Standards — The color standard officially adopted by the British Standards Institution (Standard 543-1934) is the Dictionary of Colour Standards (1934; 2nd ed., 1951) issued by the British Colour Council. The second edition displays 240 colors (twenty more than the first edition), produced on silk ribbons, each divided into smooth and ribbed surfaces and fastened as a loop so that the sample may be lifted enough to insert the item to be matched beneath. The Dictionary takes the form of two volumes in a portfolio: one volume (57 pp.) is a list of the colors, with their BCC numbers and the origin of the name; the other is a folding chart exhibiting the colored ribbons, each sample numbered consecutively
Of the other publications of the British Colour Council, two should be mentioned. In 1938 the Council issued (in collaboration with the Royal Horticultural Society) the first volume of a Horticultural Colour Chart, also called the Wilson Colour Chart after Robert F. Wilson, the active and prominent general manager of the Council at that time. It consists of a portfolio containing 100 loose plates of printed color samples (not affixed chips). Each leaf lists foreign synonyms of the color name and the equivalents in four other systems (BCC Dictionary, Ridgway, Oberthür-Dauthenay, Ostwald); it also indicates a special notation for the color, in which the last two digits stand for one of 64 hues and the preceding digit represents lighter tints (600's and below) and darker shades (700's and above) — thus "Rose Bengal" is 25 and "Phlox Pink" is 625 — with prefixed zeros for steps of graying. In 1941 a second volume of 100 more plates was published. These two volumes, with their somewhat awkward notation and nomenclature and their rather inconvenient physical form, would not be successful for bibliographical description. The other publication is the one used by Stott in his Maugham bibliography, the Dictionary of Colours for Interior Decoration (1949), with 378 colors (labeled CC1-CC378) displayed in silk samples in three volumes. The Council's regular Dictionary of Colour Standards contains cross references to this
The bibliographer should be aware of the features of certain other systems, though none of them would serve as a practical choice for a bibliographical standard: (1) the Standard Color Card of America (9th ed., 1941), with 216 silk swatches, used mainly by the textile industry, employs rather bizarre nomenclature and is an unsystematic sampling of color space; (2) the DIN-Farbenkarte (1953), with samples representing equal psychological steps, is the official German standard, not very widely known in England and America; (3) the great Villalobos Colour Atlas (1947), probably the most extensive guide available, shows 7279 samples, each with a hole in the center to facilitate matching; (4) the Dictionary of Color (1930; 2nd ed., 1950) by Aloys J. Maerz and M. Rea Paul is the standard work on color nomenclature, with 7056 colors on 56 plates, and it is no criticism of the work's great authority to say that the small size of the color squares (usually 144 to the page, with no holes for comparison) and the historical purpose of the work (with some colors assigned no name at all) make it inappropriate as a standard for bibliography; (5) the Plochere Color System (1948) by Gladys and Gustave Plochere, with 1248 colors on 3" x 5" cards (or smaller mounted rectangles), is basically a guide for interior decorators; (6) Federal Standard No. 595 (1956), with 358 color chips, is not a systematic sampling and is mainly intended for the specification of paint colors in use by the United States government; (7) Robert Ridgway's Color Standards and Color Nomenclature (1912), with 1115 colors and names, was long a standard for naturalists but is now out of print; (8) the Nu-Hue Color Coordinator (1949, 1952), prepared by Carl E. Foss for the Martin-Senour Company, is
Clearly the various attempts at color standardization have not in the past led to any general system which encompasses or coordinates a large number of them, and the bibliographer is faced with a multiplicity of systems, none of which precisely suits his needs. The choice of one with the fewest disadvantages becomes a matter of deciding which of the desired features are most important — whether it is better to have a standard with a large number of colors, or a satisfactory nomenclature, or a low price, or something else. There is no doubt that the problem of nomenclature is extremely important for bibliographical description, because the reader of a bibliography should not be required to consult a color chart except when a question arises. He should not be confronted with "8pa" or "13432," unaccompanied by a commonly understood color expression; yet the common expression must be firmly attached to a precise area in color space so that it will hold the same meaning for each user. Fortunately, such a system is now available.
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