A System of Color Identification for Bibliographical
Description
by
G. Thomas
Tanselle
The introduction of publishers' cloth in the 1820's was an unfortunate
day for bibliographers, since the description of bindings has turned out to
be perhaps the most troublesome aspect of the description of nineteenth- and
twentieth-century books. Other parts of the description, which generally
apply to earlier books as well, have become by now reasonably
standardized. The bindings on earlier books, since they are products distinct
from the process of publication, are not ordinarily the concern of the
descriptive bibliographer; and specialists in the history of bookbinding have
developed a vocabulary for dealing with them.[1] Even publishers' "bindings" (or
casings),
of course, are not bibliographical objects, strictly speaking, since they are
not part of the letterpress. However, aside from the fact that binding
variants can sometimes help to determine the priority of an issue,[2] the cloth is part of the dress in
which an author's words are presented to the public, and its appearance
therefore deserves to be recorded by the historian of such matters, the
descriptive bibliographer.
To frame in words an adequate description of a cloth binding requires
essentially some kind of notation of the texture, or "grain," of the cloth and
some indication of its color. The first of these problems, though by no
means solved, has received a great deal more attention than the second and
is much nearer solution. Michael Sadleir, in his
pioneering
Trollope:
A Bibliography (1928),
used
such terms as "silk-grained" or "morocco-grained" to describe binding
cloth, a gain in precision over "grained cloth" or simply "cloth," if one
could visualize what the words implied; and two years later, in
The
Evolution of Publishers' Binding Styles, 1770-1900, he furnished
photographs of four common cloth grains (facing p. 46). Then John Carter,
the other pioneer historian of edition binding, made the next step forward
in
Binding Variants in English Publishing,
1820-1900 (1932), with his preliminary section on
"Terminology of Grains and Designs" (pp. xvi-xviii). Here he supplied a
plate illustrating twelve grains and provided a table of equivalences between
descriptive terms like Sadleir's and the letter designations in use by
Winterbottom's, the principal supplier of book cloth.
This table suggests the inevitable dichotomy in the verbal presentation
of visual data: one may either use a precise, technical term, which often has
little immediate meaning for the uninitiated reader, or else a more readily
visualized term, which often is less exact and which breaks down when fine
discriminations are needed. Carter declared his preference for the Sadleir
terms — that is, "diaper" instead of "H" cloth, "sand-grain" instead
of
"C", and so on — but not all bibliographers have agreed with him.
The
two most important recent sources for photographic identifications of cloth
grains represent these two approaches. Sadleir, at the end of the first
volume of his great catalogue, XIX Century Fiction (1951),
includes four plates showing twenty-four grains and giving them descriptive
names; Jacob Blanck, at the front of each volume of the Bibliography
of American Literature (1955- ), illustrates twenty-eight grains,
assigning them the letter symbols
used in the trade.[3] Either of these
sets of photographs provides a basis for standardization of nomenclature,
if followed scrupulously by bibliographers. Perhaps a chart should be issued
making these standards more readily accessible, and perhaps bibliographers
should, for precision, use both terms — such as "bold-ribbed (T)
cloth."[4]
When one turns to the other basic ingredient of the description of
cloth, the indication of color, one is surprised to find that practically no
attention has been given to the matter. In the Bibliography of
American Literature, for example, the careful specification
of
cloth grains is in sharp contrast to this comment about color: "No attempt
has been made to give other than a brief statement regarding color, and
commonly accepted designations are used; variations in tone are recorded"
(I, xxxiii).
[5] One does not expect
bibliographers who strive for precision in most respects to emphasize the
casualness of their approach to color, as in these remarks:
. . . where colour is concerned, we have hesitated to accept such
British exoticisms as "Auricula Purple" and "Cossack Green" and have
quite simply described the colours as they appeared to us in broad daylight.
Rust red,
olive brown,
salmon
pink may
not stand all tests, but they function adequately for such readers as are not
wholly colour-blind. When we encountered variant bindings of the same
basic colour, but with differences in shading, we on occasion appealed for
help to the sex which daily distinguishes colour-variations in clothing,
jewellery and household goods.
[6]
One is not surprised, however, given the subjective nature of color
descriptions produced in this casual way, to find that any two bibliographers
in the past, treating the same book, have been likely to come up with two
different designations of the cloth color. Thus T. J. Wise, in his Browning
bibliography (1897), describes the wrappers of Pippa Passes
(1841) as "yellow" (p. 7), though he explains that they are sometimes "pale
cream" or "light brown"; the Broughton-Northup-Pearsall bibliography
(1953), on the other hand, calls these wrappers "light apple-green" (p. 4).
Similarly, J. W. Robertson (1934) sees the covers of Poe's Al
Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems
(1829)
as "purple" (p. 38), while for Heartman-Canny (1943) they are "grey-blue"
(p. 23). Sometimes the difference is a matter of emphasis, as when Duval
(1939) designates the cloth of Aldous Huxley's On the
Margin
(1923) "blue-green" (p. 28) and Muir-van Thal (1927) finds it
"greenish-blue" (p. 20); or when McDonald (1925) considers D. H.
Lawrence's The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd (1914) to be
"red"
(p. 32) and The Prussian Officer (1914) to be "dark blue" (p.
35), while Roberts (1963) finds them, conversely, "dark red" (p. 24) and
"blue" (p. 25). Even the relative proportions are not constant, for Hogan
(1936) labels Edwin Arlington Robinson's The Man Against the
Sky (1916) and Merlin (1917) equally as "maroon"
(pp.
11-12), while
Beebe and Bulkley (1931) say that the first is "dark maroon" and the second
plain "maroon" (pp. 14-15). For Currie (1932), Booth Tarkington's
In
the Arena (1905) is "dark olive" (p. 53), but for Russo and Sullivan
(1949) it is "sage-green" (p. 14); for Williams and Starrett (1948), Stephen
Crane's
The Red Badge of Courage (1895) is "tan" (p. 18),
but
for H. F. West (in the Dartmouth catalogue, 1948) it is "yellow" (p. 5); for
Parker (1948), Joyce's
Dubliners (1914) is "plum" (p. 22),
but
for Slocum and Cahoon (1953) it is "dark red" (p. 12); both Stewart (1959)
and Livingston (1927) agree that Kipling's
The Seven Seas
(1896) is "red" (pp. 136, 160), but for Martindell (1923) it is "maroon" (p.
53); for Sadleir (volume 12 of the Constable edition, 1923), Melville's
Typee (1846) is "fawn" (p. 341) and
Mardi
(1849)
is "dark green" (p. 348), but for Minnigerode (1922) the first is "yellow"
(p. 102) and the second "dark brown" (p. 135).
Such a list could be extended indefinitely, but the process would be
pointless, since confusion of this kind is to be expected when color names
are chosen on the basis of personal preference, without recourse to any set
of standards. There have been only a few signs in recent years that
bibliographers are beginning to be concerned about the problem. John
Carter, in his ABC for Book-Collectors (1952), understated
the
case when he said, "There has never been much precision or uniformity in
describing the colours of cloth"; but he went on to make a specific
suggestion: "until we all agree to use the official Dictionary of
Colour
Standards, this imprecision will no doubt persist" (p. 55). The
following year Patrick Cahill, in The English First Editions of
Hilaire
Belloc, adopted standard 381c of the British Standards Institution,
Colours for Ready Mixed Paints (1948; 3rd impression,
1951),
and thus described his bindings with such terms as "dovegrey"
or "deep buff" or "pale-crimson." Then in 1956 Raymond Toole Stott took
up Carter's recommendation in his bibliography of Somerset Maugham and
used one of the British Colour Council's publications — the
Dictionary of Colours for Interior Decoration (1949). Though
it may seem strange to read of "hay" or "biscuit" endpapers, the experiment
was, as Stott recognized, "at least a step on the way to the systematized
description of colours of binding cloth" (p. 8). And it was undoubtedly
more efficient and precise than the method used by Frederick T. Bason in
his earlier (1931) Maugham bibliography: the binding of Of Human
Bondage (1915), labeled "petrol blue" by Stott
(p. 35), had been described by Bason as "dark sea-green cloth (a more
distinct green than
The Casuarina Tree)" (p. 33).
[7]
These worthy efforts, however, did not convert other bibliographers
from their subjective ways. Anthony Rota, reviewing Keynes' bibliography
of Siegfried Sassoon (1962), remarked that "Sir Geoffrey's treatment of
colours again points the need for the adoption of a common standard for
defining binding shades"; and he quoted Keynes' description of The
Old Hunstman (1917) as "drab or grey-blue" (with its ambiguous
or, since the two colors do not seem synonymous) and of
The Daffodil Murderer (1913) as "orange" (when to Rota's
eyes
it is yellow).[8] That this kind of
confusion has not prodded bibliographers long before now to attack the
problem of color designation is remarkable. On the other hand, this neglect
can perhaps partly be explained by the fact that significant
nineteenth-century binding variants generally do not depend on color
differences alone; books were frequently issued in several colors
simultaneously, and later
bindings often involved a different cloth texture as well as color.[9] But in the twentieth century color
variants
may be more meaningful, since the simultaneous issue of multiple colors
has not been customary. In any event, there should be a precise method for
describing the color of a given binding whether or not the priority of an
issue depends on its specification. No bibliographer would estimate the
dimensions of a leaf without using a ruler; in the same way no
bibliographer should make his own subjective estimate of a color without
turning to a color chart, which ought to be an equally essential part of his
equipment. The point is self-evident; there should be general agreement, in
the words of the reviewer of Cahill's bibliography, that "it would be a great
relief to all concerned if some standard scale could be
adopted."[10]
The question then becomes the determination of the particular system
best suited to the requirements of bibliographical description. And this
decision is not to be lightly made; for any kind of standard, to serve its
purpose, must be capable of wide acceptance and future
applicability. At the outset, it should be possible to agree that any system
selected for bibliography must meet certain minimum conditions: (1) it must
contain color chips or samples which can be compared easily with book
covers; (2) it must include a sufficient number of different colors to be
compatible with the degree of precision required in making the kinds of
distinctions between bindings that are likely to be significant under varying
circumstances; (3) it must assign to each color a name (not simply a
number or symbol), avoiding names so fanciful as to carry no immediate
connotation; (4) it must be compact in physical form and easily portable,
so that the bibliographer can conveniently carry the standards with him to
the libraries in which he is working; (5) it must be inexpensive enough that
it can become a standard tool in every bibliographer's possession (for it is
too much to expect, even for an accepted standard, that each collection in
which one works will have a
copy at hand); (6) it must provide strong assurance of continued availability
in the future. The number of color systems which have devised since the
time of Isaac Newton is vast,
[11] and
it is necessary to know something about the currently available ones in
order to make an intelligent choice.
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
system is for scientific measurement, its disadvantages for bibliographical
description are obvious. To demand that bibliographers acquire the
necessary knowledge of optics would decimate their already small ranks;
and the prospect of setting up shop, with delicate and expensive
instruments, in each rare book room would eliminate the few that remained
— if, indeed, the librarians had not already resigned. Not only is this
method impractical for bibliographical purposes; it is undesirable. For the
degree of accuracy attainable with a spectrophotometer is not required in
a bibliographical description (and is thus wasteful of effort); in addition, it
could often be actually misleading, since it would continually reveal
variants, most of which (depending on the tolerances established by the
manufacturer of the cloth or the dye) would have no significance to the
bibliographer. To put the matter another way, if the bibliographer makes
finer distinctions than those required by the
adopted tolerances of the manufacturer, he may find himself recording as
variants bindings which came from the same bolt of material or consecutive
ones.
[14] Furthermore, the notation in
tristimulus terms is not one which could be readily comprehended by the
readers of a descriptive bibliography.
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,
this approach to color specification can be very precise and is scientifically
valid. Although individual perception of a color is subjective, the act of
matching a color with a carefully produced standard (which can then be
referred to by other persons) reduces to a minimum the effects of
subjectivity. And if the color chips have been chosen to represent particular
CIE specifications that will result in a systematic sampling of color space,
the whole process rests on a sound scientific foundation.
[15] Aside from the danger of fading,
an
unavoidable problem in any material standard, the principal limitation of
such systems is the necessity of interpolation. Since the eye can distinguish
about ten million colors and since there are theoretically an infinite number
of colors in three-dimensional color space, any color atlas or set of
standards must represent a selection based on some principle of organization
(hence the generic term "color-order systems");
therefore, depending on the number of colors selected and the accuracy of
specification required, it is sometimes necessary to estimate the relation of
a given color to two of the colors in the standard. This sort of interpolation,
though it can be performed skillfully with practice, remains of course a
subjective matter. A material color standard for bibliography should contain
enough colors that, within the limits of accuracy desired, interpolation
would seldom be required; on the other hand, it should not include so many
colors that the process of matching becomes time-consuming and
indecisive.
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
perceptions of color differences and spacing. Some systems, such as atlases
printed by a screen-plate process, are intermediate, partaking of the
characteristics of both the color- and colorant-mixture types.
[16] The methods by which the colors
are
produced, however, will be of less concern to the bibliographer than the
physical features and range of the resulting standards; and the three most
promising systems are surveyed here with the needs of the bibliographer in
mind:
(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
the circumference of the equator plane: red, yellow-red, yellow,
green-yellow, green, blue-green, blue, purple-blue, purple, red-purple. The
axis is divided into ten steps from black to white, and the number of
possible chroma steps varies with the hue and value. Any color can then be
referred to in a form such as "R 4/8," in which R signifies "red," 4 means
the fourth step up from black toward white along the axis, and 8 indicates
the eighth step perpendicular to the axis on that value level. R 4/12 would
be more fully saturated and R 4/6 less; R 5/8 would be lighter and R 3/8
darker. Each hue segment may be subdivided into ten numbered planes so
that, for example, 7R 4/8 would be a yellower red than 5R 4/8, and 3R 4/8
would be more purple. This system of notation is flexible enough to
accommodate theoretically an infinite number of colors (by using decimals,
as in 3.7RP 8.4/3.3) but is simple enough to be immediately comprehended
(without reference to a table) by anyone
acquainted with it.
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
Insulated Wire and Cable;
Plant Tissue Color
Charts;
Soil Color Charts;
Rock Color
Charts
for the Geological Society of America;
Value Scales for Judging
Reflectance), each representing a selection from the
Munsell
Book of Color, there is one which offers possibilities for
bibliographical description — the
Color Fan developed
by
Dorothy Nickerson for use in horticulture.
[21] Convenient in size (7¾" x
1⅞"),
each of the 40 hue leaves of the fan displays six or seven value steps, and
the samples (1⅞" x ⅞") fill the entire width of each leaf, avoiding
the usual disadvantage of nonremovable samples and greatly facilitating
comparison with a binding; there are 262 colors shown and the price is
$7.50. The limitation of the published
Fan is that it illustrates
only maximum chroma (other fans are planned to sample the sphere in
other ways), so that one would be dealing only with colors on the
surface of the sphere. All in all, the Munsell system has, from the
bibliographer's point of view, the advantages of continued availability, wide
acceptance and respect, an easily learned and comprehensive notation,
excellently produced charts, convenient size, and (in the case of the
Nickerson
Color Fan) a feasible price; its only real limitation
for the description of bindings is the discrepancy in surface texture between
the color chips and cloth.
(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
are immediately apparent — one of theoretical, and the other of
practical,
importance. Because the point of highest saturation for any given hue falls
at the apex of a triangle which contains the other shades and tints of that
hue, no provision is made for the irregularities in the surface of the solid
resulting from the divergences in saturation attainable by different coloring
materials; so the system is inflexible, and the development of new methods
for producing greater saturation in a given hue necessitates readjusting the
entire triangle. On the practical level, the method of notation is much more
difficult to learn and remember than the Munsell notation.
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
and assigned a name and a code reference. The fact that the
Dictionary is an officially adopted standard and the fact that
it
consists of cloth samples are enormous advantages, which no doubt lie
behind John Carter's choice of this
Dictionary for
bibliographical purposes, but its nomenclature is not so appropriate as might
be desired. In the first place, the identifying numbers (from BCC 1 to BCC
240), unlike the Munsell notation, give no indication of the position of the
color in color space. On top of that, the names, however conventional some
of them may be in certain fields, have often been chosen for industrial uses
and are not always clear to the general reader — for instance, BCC
71
is "Garter Blue," BCC 235 "Crayon Blue," BCC 239 "Gloucestershire
Green," BCC 142 "Corn Husk," and BCC 170 "Natal Brown." The colors
have usually been matched to the object named, as the description of the
origin of "Peacock Blue" (BCC 120) illustrates: "A very old colour name.
The
colour here given was matched to peacock feathers, and is a general
representation of samples submitted by textile and other colour using
industries." The arrangement of the samples is also less meaningful than
might be hoped: thus "Brick Red" (BCC 125) and "Guardsman Red" (BCC
126) are separated by several leaves from the related "Signal Red," "Post
Office Red," and "Union Jack Red" (BCC 208-210).
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
chart, but the names do not always match — BCC47, "Victrix Blue,"
for
example, is the same as CC287, "Ming Blue." This situation does not seem
conducive to standardization of terminology, particularly when the terms are
not self-explanatory. Stott, after using this
Dictionary,
reported
that "many book cloths defy even the 378 examples shown on the chart" (p.
8); and a reviewer of his bibliography questioned the BCC nomenclature by
asking whether the gain in accuracy was "worth achieving at the cost of
superficial confusion in the minds of those who are more familiar with
The Library than with
Vogue."
[22] Another disadvantage of all three
publications was expressed by Cahill when asked why he adopted a paint
standard instead of the British Colour Council's
Dictionary:
"its
bulk and price make it an impossible tool for the Belloc collectors,
enthusiasts and booksellers for whom my book is mainly
intended."
[23]
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
perhaps the most ambitious and elaborately produced of the
colorant-mixture systems developed by paint manufacturers; (9) the 1962
Reinhold Color Atlas (in England the
Methuen
Handbook
of Colour), by A. Kornerup and J.H.Wanscher, displays 1266
colors
in extremely (perhaps overly) compact form. These systems are of course
only a few out of a possible list of seventy-five or more; but the
bibliographer cannot seriously consider the great majority of color charts,
devised specifically for stamp collectors, horticulturists, interior decorators,
paint dealers, textile dyers, or ornithologists.
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.
II
In 1931 the Inter-Society Color Council was formed as an
organization of national societies whose work involved color; it was not
only to be a clearinghouse for color problems and research but more
specifically was to assist in revising the color names used in the U. S.
Pharmacopoeia.[24] E. N. Gathercoal,
the ISCC's first chairman, was a member of the Pharmacopoeial Revision
Committee, and he had arranged a symposium on color names at the 1930
Pharmacopoeial Convention in Washington. His goal was a color
nomenclature "sufficiently standardized as to be acceptable to science,
sufficiently broad to be appreciated
and usable by science, art, and industry, and sufficiently commonplace to
be understood, at least in a general way, by the whole public." By 1933 I.
H. Godlove had sketched out the foundation for such a system; by 1936
Kenneth L. Kelly of the National Bureau of Standards was working on the
task of assigning boundaries to the suggested color designations; and in
1939 Deane B. Judd and Kelly published Research Paper 1239, "Method
of Designating Colors," in which common color names were defined in
terms of specific areas of the Munsell color solid.
[25] This ISCC-NBS method, as it was
called,
was an enormous step forward, but by 1949 a committee of the ISCC had
revised the color boundaries in response to certain criticisms which some
users had made. Finally, in 1955, Kelly and Judd published the revised
version of their 1939 work, which now also contained a dictionary relating
the ISCC-NBS names to those in other systems. This remarkable book,
The
ISCC-NBS Method of Designating Colors and a Dictionary of Color
Names, is NBS Circular 553, available from the Superintendent of
Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, at $2, and should certainly
be a part of every bibliographer's equipment.
In the history of color nomenclature, the work is epoch-making in at
least two ways. First, instead of assigning names to particular color chips,
it proceeds in the other direction, setting up a system of easily understood
names and then mapping out the entire color solid for the first time into
segments which define the precise limits of each name. The system of
names — which takes into account the three attributes of color
— is a
simple one based on ten hue names, three neutrals, their modifying forms,
and ten other modifiers, as follows:
Hues
- B blue
- Br brown
- G green
- O orange
- Ol olive
- P purple
- Pk pink
- R red
- V violet
- Y yellow
- b bluish
- br brownish
- g greenish
- p purplish
- pk pinkish
- r reddish
- y yellowish
Neutrals
- Black black
- Gy gray
- White white
- blackish blackish
- gy. grayish
Value Modifiers (Lightness)
- d. dark
- l. light
- med. medium
- v. very
Chroma Modifiers
(Saturation)
- gy. grayish
- m. moderate
- s. strong
- v. vivid
Value and Chroma Combinations
- brill. brilliant [light, strong]
- deep deep [dark, strong]
- p. pale [light, grayish]
The abbreviations provide a concise notation (as "v.d.pR" for "very dark
purplish red") but of course are not essential. The point is that there are no
"post office reds," nor "puces," nor even "garnets" here, but only
combinations which — however complicated, as "dark grayish olive
green" — at least give a suggestion of the particular color to any
reader.
The color solid is then divided into 267 named segments, and the
boundaries of each are plotted on 31 charts representing ranges of Munsell
hue. Thus, for example, both Munsell renotation 4R 3/6 and 3R 2.5/5 fall
within the area designated as "dark red." Since colorimetric measurements
have been made of the colors of Munsell renotation,
[26] even a color identified in CIE
terms could
be converted to an ISCC-NBS name.
The second important feature of the work — the second part,
added
in 1955 — is the dictionary, which makes it equally easy to convert
to
these names from a number of systems other than Munsell. This dictionary
is a compilation of the names used in fourteen previous charts or atlases:
Maerz-Paul, Plochere, Ridgway, Federal Specification TT-C-595, Wilson's
Horticultural Colour Chart, the Color Card of
America, Taylor-Knoche-Granville (supplement to the Color
Harmony Manual), the American Association of Textile Chemists
and
Colorists and the Society of Dyers and Colourists' standard, Commercial
Standards CS147-47 (Urea Plastics) and CS156-49 (Polystyrene Plastics),
the National Research Council's Rock-Color Chart, the
Department of Agriculture's Soil Color Chart, H. A. Dade's
Color Terminology in Biology, and W. H. Beck's
Postage-Stamp Color Names. First comes a list (pp. 35-82)
of
the 267 ISCC-NBS names with the synonyms from
these systems listed under each name. Then follows the dictionary proper
(pp. 83-158), which lists alphabetically all the names from these fourteen
systems (about 7500 names), giving for each the source and the ISCC-NBS
designation (and serial number). Previous dictionaries drawing names
together from various sources have not subordinated them to a new
terminology nor attempted to provide names to cover the entire color solid
systematically; the ISCC-NBS method is thus a kind of master-system,
furnishing a common ground to coordinate earlier systems. If one person,
using Maerz-Paul, describes a color as "Rhodonite Pink" and another, using
Plochere, refers to "Orchid Mauve," both can consult the ISCC-NBS
dictionary and discover that they are dealing with the same color, "dark
purplish pink" (no. 251).
The advantages of this system for bibliographers (or for anyone else)
are immediately apparent. It provides a consistent, standard, easily
understood nomenclature for color, regardless of the particular set of color
chips employed for matching. If one bibliographer prefers for some reason
to use the Plochere system but hesitates to describe the color of a certain
binding cloth as "Best Effort" (or as 1224 YYg 3-h), he can look that name
up in the ISCC-NBS dictionary and find that it corresponds to ISCC-NBS
121, "pale yellow green." Then if another bibliographer, who wishes to
check this color himself, has only a copy of Ridgway at hand, he may make
the comparison, find that Ridgway's "Glaucous" is the one that matches,
and check the dictionary to see that "Glaucous" is also within the area
defined by "pale yellow green." The same would be true of a third
bibliographer or collector who had identified the binding as "Rhone"
(Maerz-Paul 18 B 3). In this way uniformity results in
the final bibliographical description, despite the multiplicity of systems
which may have been used by individual bibliographers. Even if a
bibliographer buys for himself a copy of the Munsell Book of
Color, for example, he may not always have it with him; if he finds
himself in a library which has only a copy of Maerz-Paul, he may proceed
with his description of the binding and later convert the Maerz-Paul term
by using the ISCC-NBS dictionary. For accuracy and for general scholarly
indication of sources, the ISCC-NBS name should be accompanied by a
reference in parentheses to the actual color sample used — as "dark
red
(Maerz-Paul 6 L 11)," or "dark red (Plochere 353 R 3-a)," or "dark red
(TCCA 65020)," or "dark red (Munsell 2.5R 3/7)." The Nickerson
Color Fan is particularly convenient (aside from its price,
size,
and arrangement) because it designates on each sample both the Munsell
notation and the ISCC-NBS name (thus obviating any reference to the
dictionary
itself after the process of matching). In any case, two points are essential:
that bibliographers agree to compare binding colors with
some
collection of color samples and that they convert the identifications into
ISCC-NBS names.[27]
The only real limitation of the ISCC-NBS system as published in
1955 was that it contained no actual color chips to illustrate the names.
However, by 1958 Kenneth L. Kelly had worked out the Munsell
renotations for the center of gravity of each of the 267 ISCC-NBS
color-name blocks,
[28] and handmade
charts illustrating these centroid colors were produced as an aid to
ISCC-NBS Subcommittee on Problem 23, the Historical Expression of
Color Usage, as explained in its
Interim Report of 20
November
1960. The NBS then began preparing such charts for general distribution
as a supplement to Circular 553, and they became available in February
1965 from the Standard Reference Materials Office at the National Bureau
of Standards, as Standard Sample No. 2106, for $3 per set.
[29] The
ISCC-NBS Centroid
Color
Charts complete the system, and for a total of $5 the bibliographer
can now equip himself with both the dictionary and the charts, which
together comprise the most efficient method of color naming yet devised
and the one most likely to become a general
standard accepted by all fields. The charts alone are all that the
bibliographer need carry with him, and they are convenient in size. There
are twenty leaves, 10½" x 8", of which the first two contain a table
giving the Munsell renotation for each centroid sample and the other
eighteen are hue charts illustrating 251 of the 267 ISCC-NBS names in
glossy chips 1" square. The chips are arranged on each sheet as they would
appear on a Munsell hue plane (that is, with the grays at the left, the highly
saturated colors at the right, the lighter colors at the top, and the darker
ones at the bottom), against a neutral background of about their own value
level; beneath each chip is the identifying number of that color-name block
and the abbreviation of its color name. Using these charts the bibliographer
will not have to make any conversions from one color name to another; he
can simply find the chip which most nearly matches his binding and record
it as "deep bluish green (Centroid
161)" or "vivid orange (Centroid 48)" or "dark grayish yellowish brown
(Centroid 81)."
The first question which bibliographers are likely to raise is whether
a system with 267 colors (and 251 chips) can be sufficiently accurate,
particularly in view of Stott's comment, in his Maugham
bibliography, that the 378 samples in the BCC's
Dictionary of
Colours
for Interior Decoration were not sufficient. The question may be
answered in two ways. First, one must consider the principle of selection
of the 267 colors. Though not a great number, they represent blocks which,
taken together, comprise the entire color solid; the chips, in turn, represent
the center of 251 of these blocks. In contrast to other systems, then, each
chip illustrates a color
characteristic of a well-defined area.
When one decides that a particular binding color does not match precisely
any of the centroid chips but comes closest to matching Centroid 16, one
can be sure that the block of the solid labeled "dark red" contains the
particular color, and "dark red" is thus an accurate term, even though the
match with the color chip was not exact. To this degree, the system is
capable of complete accuracy, whereas in other systems the fact that one
chip is closer than another to the color
in question has little significance for naming, since the boundaries of the
color-name have not been defined.
Second, since the ISCC-NBS dictionary encompasses fourteen other
systems (plus the Munsell name charts), it is always possible, when finer
discriminations are required, to utilize a system with more chips and yet
remain within the framework of the ISCC-NBS method. Indeed, Kelly has
explained six levels of accuracy in color description attainable within this
method.[30] In the first the color solid
is divided into only 13 sections, corresponding to the ten hue names and the
three neutrals; for some purposes it is enough to distinguish "pink" from
"red," or "yellow" from "orange." The second level works with 29
name-blocks, consisting of all the hue terms — such as "olive
brown,"
"greenish yellow," "yellowish brown," or "olive green." The 267 names
produced by adding the modifiers descriptive of value and chroma, as in the
ISCC-NBS dictionary and centroid charts, constitute the third level of
refinement, the one on which bibliographers may normally
find themselves. But many distinguishable colors naturally fall within each
of these name-blocks, and it may be that certain binding variants are not
distinguishable in terms of the centroid colors alone. One may then move
to the fourth level, which involves consulting an appropriate color-order
system — Munsell if possible, but, if not, perhaps Plochere, with
1248
colors, or Maerz-Paul, with 7056.[31]
If an exact
match is not found, the next step (the fifth level) is to make a visual
interpolation from the
Munsell Book of Color. Because the
Munsell system is based on psychological spacing (a color-appearance
system) and because the Munsell notation is conveniently manipulated to
reflect changes in any of the three attributes, a person with some experience
can accurately indicate about 100,000 colors by such interpolation. The
sixth and highest level of accuracy is of course the CIE method of
spectrophotometric measurement, capable of dividing the color solid into
about five million parts. Bibliographers will need to leave the third level
only rarely, but the accuracy required at certain times
[32] may necessitate moving to the
fourth or
fifth levels. In any event, the ISCC-NBS system adequately takes into
account the fact that varying degrees of accuracy are desirable under
varying circumstances.
Another problem arises from the fact that the centroid color chips are
glossy and book cloth is not. Since the ideal system for bibliography is
undoubtedly one with cloth samples, there is no answer to this objection,
except to say that the system offers so many other advantages that it is still
the best one to choose. Besides, the importance of the surface texture of the
sample in any given case is a function of the accuracy required. In some
instances, then, the bibliographer may wish to turn to the textile
Color
Card — so long as he realizes that its sampling of the color
solid
is not systematic — or to the British Colour Council's
Dictionary. The difference in appearance between a glossy
chip
and a cloth swatch of the same color is also to some degree a function of
the viewing conditions. It is normally recommended, in most systems of
color identification, that the matching be done in natural light, preferably
northern light and certainly not direct
sunlight; the light should strike the surfaces to be matched at an angle of
45°, and the surfaces should be viewed from 90°. Some sets of
chips include masks which can be used to block out the colors on the chart
surrounding the chip being matched. Although the ISCC-NBS charts do not
contain masks, it is a good idea to prepare a few of them by making a hole
1" square in a stiff piece of gray paper or cardboard.
Still another of the bibliographer's questions will concern notation
— what form the color information is to take in a bibliographical
description. The ISCC-NBS abbreviations — as "d.gy.G" —
should
probably not be used, for they give essentially common terms an esoteric
appearance; "dark grayish green" does not take up too much space. The
centroid number can conveniently be inserted in parentheses following the
name, just as the letter identifying a cloth grain can be placed after the
verbal description of it. Thus what formerly might have been referred to as
"dark green ribbed cloth" may now appear as follows:
dark grayish green (Centroid 151) bold-ribbed (T) cloth
or bold-ribbed (T) cloth, dark grayish green (Centroid
151)
The length of the color expression, including its parenthesis, may be clearer
and less awkward if it follows, rather than precedes, the designation of
grain. A further convention may perhaps be agreed upon: the presence of
a centroid number suggests only that the color falls within that color-name
block and does not necessarily imply an exact match with the centroid
color; however, if another set of chips is referred to as the standard for the
identification, the match may be inferred as exact, unless the abbreviation
"cf." precedes the notation. To illustrate:
dark grayish green (Centroid 151) [indicates the color-name
block]
dark grayish green (Nickerson 10 GY 3/2) [indicates precise
match]
dark grayish green (cf. Nickerson 10 GY 3/2) [indicates approximate
match]
Obviously the last of these represents an extension of the fourth level of
accuracy; it stops short of the fifth level because an interpolation has not
been suggested. When an interpolation is made, the notation should be
enclosed in brackets:
dark grayish green [Munsell 10 GY 3.2/1.75]
In this system the color of Waldo Frank's
Time Exposures
(Boni & Liveright, 1926) is "brilliant yellow (Centroid 83)," of Vachel
Lindsay's
Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty
(Kennerley, 1914) "very deep red (Centroid 14)," of Sherwood Anderson's
Horses and Men (Huebsch, 1923) "strong reddish orange
(Centroid 35)"; and a complete description — of Eunice Tietjens'
Jake (Boni & Liveright, 1921) — would go
something like
this:
Binding: linen (B) cloth, strong red (cf. Nickerson 5R
4/12); blocked in brilliant orange yellow (Centroid 67). Front: 'JAKE |
[design] | BY EUNICE | TIETJENS'. Spine: '[thick-thin
rule]
| JAKE | [design] | EUNICE | TIETJENS | BONI AND | LIVERIGHT
| [thin-thick rule]'. Back: blank. Stiff wove endpapers, strong red (cf.
Nickerson 2.5R 5/12). All edges trimmed; top edge stained as
endpapers.
In this instance the slight difference in color between the cloth and the
endpapers could not be indicated by reference to Centroid 12, so
approximations to two colors in the Nickerson
Color Fan
were
used.
However, it should be emphasized here that, despite an occasional
example of this kind, the bibliographer generally need feel no urge to go
beyond the centroid charts. Given the nature of book cloth and of material
standards, the majority of matches are going to be only approximate; and
in any case the purposes of most bibliographical descriptions would not be
further served by a more precise match. For these reasons the centroid
colors, which are simply the representative colors of
particular
color-blocks, constitute an ideal frame of reference. If a bibliographer goes
outside this system, one must assume either (1) that another system was the
only one at hand when the comparison was made (with the result later
converted to the corresponding centroid name) or (2) that greater accuracy
was required — and obtained — by specification in terms of
another
system. It would be a mistake to overuse the "cf." designation, for, if the
match is only approximate anyway, nothing
is gained in precision over the simple reference to the centroid color.
Because of the advantages of the Munsell notation, it may be that
some bibliographers, if they have had to turn to another set of chips for an
exact match, will want to indicate the equivalent Munsell notation or
renotation as a convenience to their readers. The Munsell equivalents of the
most commonly used systems have been tabulated, and it may prove helpful
to bring together the principal references to these conversion tables:
-
Color Harmony Manual Walter C. Granville,
"Munsell Renotations of
Color Harmony Manual
Chips
(Third Edition)
from Spectrophotometric Measurements,"
available
from Container Corporation of America,
Color Standards Department, 38 South
Dearborn
Street, Chicago 60603.[33]
-
DIN-Farbenkarte W. Budde, H. E. Kundt,
and Günter Wyszecki,
"Überführung der
Farbmasszahlen nach dem
Farbsystem DIN 6164 in
Munsell-Masszahlen
und umgekehrt," Farbe, IV
(1955), 83-88.
-
Horticultural Colour Chart Dorothy Nickerson,
"Horticultural Colour Chart
Names with Munsell Key,"
JOSA, XLVII
(1957), 619-621.
-
Maerz-Paul Dorothy Nickerson,
"Interrelation of Color Specifications,"
Paper Trade Journal,
CXXV
(1947),
TS219-237.
-
Plochere W. E. Knowles Middleton,
"The Plochere Color
System: A Descriptive Analysis,"
Canadian
Journal of Research, XXVII
(1949), F1-21.
-
Ridgway D. H. Hamly, "Ridgway
Color Standards with a Munsell Notation Key,"
JOSA, XXXIX (1949) 592-599.
-
Standard Color Card Genevieve Reimann, Deane
B. Judd, and Harry J. Keegan, "Spectrophotometric and Colorimetric
Determination of the Colors of the TCCA Standard Color Cards,"
JOSA,
XXXVI (1946), 128-159; or Journal of Research of
the National Bureau of Standards, XXXVI
(1946), 209-247.
Whether the original match was exact or approximate, an equals sign may
be used to indicate the Munsell equivalent; but if one wishes to give only
the centroid number, the symbol for "approximately equals" (≈) should
be used:
grayish purplish red (Standard Color Card 70189 =
Munsell 6RP 5.1/5.7)
grayish purplish red (cf. Standard Color Card 70189 =
Munsell 6RP 5.1/5.7)
grayish purplish red (Standard Color Card 70189 ≈
Centroid 262)
grayish purplish red (cf. Standard Color Card 70189
≈ Centroid 262)
If Munsell renotation is employed, it should be so specified:
grayish purplish red (Standard Color Card 70189 =
Munsell renotation 5.5RP 5.2/5.9)
The Munsell renotations of the centroid colors are provided in the table
accompanying the centroid charts; if a binding happens by chance to match
exactly a centroid chip, the coincidence may be indicated by including the
renotation figure:
grayish purplish red (Centroid 262 = Munsell renotation 7RP
4.5/5.1)
These equivalences are of course simply additional information which may
be furnished for the convenience of the reader in making his own further
comparisons; they are by no means required. But knowledge of the
existence of these conversion tables may be useful to the reader of a
bibliography which does not provide the equivalences.
Another question — and one of the most troublesome —
is the
problem of fading, both of the color samples and of the bindings. As far as
the samples are concerned, one should not expose them to light except
when they are being used; and after extended use one should perhaps
compare them with a new copy to see whether they have yet
faded. A consideration of faded bindings is tied up with the whole matter
of the degree of accuracy required, for in some cases it may be necessary
to determine whether a given binding is variant or merely faded. But in
most instances the determination of a secondary binding will not turn solely
on color discrimination, and, since a bibliographical description records the
characteristics of an "ideal copy,"
[34]
the general rule is to include in the binding description a notation of the
brightest copy examined. Then, if one wishes to provide the colormatching
data for the other copies, the paragraph listing "Copies Examined" is the
proper place for the information. In the case of certain scarce books, all
copies may appear faded, even on the covers (as well as the spine, where
fading is to be expected). If there is no small patch or strip of brighter
color (as on the inside edge of a cover) to serve as a basis for the color
identification, one may have
to describe the color as it appears and append a note explaining one's hunch
that the color is probably faded. A descriptive catalogue of the books in a
particular collection, however, is obligated to describe a binding in
whatever faded state it is found in that collection; but an energetic
cataloguer will go further (by examining other copies or consulting a
published bibliography) and indicate the extent of the fading, either through
an exact match or through interpolation.
moderate red (Centroid 15), faded from strong red (Centroid
12)
moderate red (Munsell renotation [3.8R 3.9/8.75], faded from 3.8R
4.4/9.1 = Centroid 15)
moderate red (Munsell renotation 3.8R 4.4/9.1 = Centroid 15, faded
from [3.8R 4.4/9.75])
Dorothy Nickerson has worked out a formula for an Index of Fading,
whereby the amount of fading can be indicated in a single figure. Though
the formula is not a complicated one, the single-figure index is more
meaningful for expressing tolerances in the textile industry than for
describing the fading of bindings, since the single figure (consolidating the
differences in hue, value, and chroma) does not enable one to visualize the
changes in the three attributes.
A final consideration has to do with the fact that colors in books are
not limited to bindings. There are colored sheets, inks, dust jackets, and
endpapers; and the ISCC-NBS names are appropriate for describing them
all. In fact, Deane Judd has specifically commented on the applicability of
these names for the paper industry and has shown some of the equivalents
between the ISCC-NBS names and those in the Grading Committee of the
Groundwood Paper Manufacturers' Association's
"Blue Book,"
Standard Color Nomenclature System and
Manual
(1936).
[35] The methods developed for
measuring the whiteness of paper, however useful for specification and
standardization in the paper industry, go beyond the degree of accuracy
required in the bibliographical description of white papers. Colors of
printing inks may also be specified in ISCC-NBS terms; in 1935 the
International Printing Ink Corporation issued
A Series of
Monographs
on Color, which included a description of the advantages of the
Munsell system. But the many atlases and sets of color chips circulated by
both paper and ink companies are not convenient as general standards. Not
a great deal of attention has been given to the description of dust
jackets,
[36] but the main problem is
simply a question of the completeness of the description rather than of
method; and the ISCC-NBS names should make such descriptions more
accurate. Another kind
of paper, however, causes greater trouble — the marbled papers
sometimes used as endpapers or binding papers. The difficulty in describing
them is analogous to that in specifying cloth grains and is not essentially a
color problem. It would be very helpful, therefore, to have a chart
illustrating such marbling patterns as "gold vein" or "nonpareil" —
the
same sort of chart (but on a more elaborate scale) that Bernard C.
Middleton furnishes as the frontispiece to his
A History of English
Craft Bookbinding Technique (1963), where twelve common kinds
of decorated papers are displayed.
[37]
In 1953 Fredson Bowers remarked, "As a matter of fact, when the
technicians really get to work on the problems of machine-printing, I rather
suspect that the general reader and the bibliographer who has catered to him
are due to suffer a shock."[38] Whether
or not the method of color description outlined here will offer a shock to
those bibliographers who fondly remember the good old days when it was
possible to speak of "puce" or "Eureka" or "Victoria Lake," depending on
one's mood, the fact remains that a move in this direction is inevitable. The
ISCC-NBS system can be as simple or as complex as is required under
different circumstances, and its use is no more difficult, and only slightly
more time-consuming, than the measurement of leaves
with a ruler. The color names should shock no one, and the whole method
seems ideally suited to descriptive bibliography — with the exception
of
the glossy chips. Perhaps a handbook can some day be produced which will
contain illustrations and names of binding grains and decorative papers
along with the centroid colors in cloth samples. In the meantime it is not
asking too much that bibliographers compare each binding cloth with the
centroid chips or some other collection of samples and express the color
name in ISCC-NBS terms. Maerz and Paul, at the beginning of their
Dictionary of Color, observe that, "while standardization has
been arrived at in practically all other fields, in the use of color names for
identifying color sensations a condition prevails that is usually characterized
as chaotic." Bibliographers can ill afford to perpetuate chaos in any of their
endeavors, if their general concern with order and accuracy is to be
meaningful.
[39]
A Note on the Literature
The bibliographer who wishes to pursue further the problems of color
specification and nomenclature and is generally unacquainted with the
technical literature of the field discovers few places to turn for help except
several alphabetical checklists in the basic books on color and
I.H.Godlove's Bibliography on Color (Inter-Society Color
Council, 1957). The present list groups the significant literature by topic or
system, with the interests of the bibliographer in mind, and is intended also
to record the material which served as the basis for the somewhat
perfunctory dismissal of a large number of color systems in the text.
The principal general surveys of color systems, which vary in the
number of systems covered and in the thoroughness of their comment, are
as follows: Ralph M. Evans, An Introduction to Color
(1948),
pp. 205-234; Optical Society of America Committee on Colorimetry,
The Science of Color (1953), pp. 317-340; Robert W.
Burnham, Randall M. Hanes, and C. James Bartleson, Color:
A Guide to Basic Facts and Concepts (1963), pp. 163-172;
Deane B. Judd and Günter Wyszecki, Color in Business,
Science, and Industry (2nd ed., 1963), pp.
202-264;
W.D.Wright, The Measurement of Colour (3rd ed., 1964),
pp.
161-192; Symposium on Color — Its Specification and Use in
Evaluating the Appearance of Materials (American Society for
Testing Materials, 1941), pp. 37-44; Arthur G. Abbott, The Color
of
Life (1947), pp. 141-163; Sterling B. McDonald, Color
Harmony (1949), pp. 111-118; Color Charts: A
Descriptive
List (Letter Circular 986, National Bureau of Standards, 1950); H.
D. Murray (ed.), Colour in Theory and Practice (1939; rev.
ed., 1952), pp. 143-158; Frederick M. Crewdson, Color in
Decoration and Design (1953), pp. 90-108; A. Ames, Jr., "Systems
of Color Standards," JOSA, V (1921), 160-170; K. S.
Gibson,
"The Analysis and Specification of Color," Journal of the Society of
Motion Picture Engineers, XXVIII (1937), 388-410; Morton C.
Bradley, "Systems of Color Classification," Technical Studies
in the Field of the Fine Arts, VI (1937-38), 240-275; Forrest
L. Dimmick, "Color Nomenclature and Specification,"
Psychological
Bulletin, XXXV (1938), 473-486; Deane B. Judd, "Color Systems
and Their Inter-relation,"
Illuminating Engineering, XXXVI
(1941), 336-369; Carl E. Foss, "Color-Order Systems,"
Journal of
the
Society of Motion Picture Engineers, LII (1949), 184-196.
CIE SYSTEM. A helpful elementary discussion is G. J. Chamberlin,
The C.I.E. International Colour System Explained (1951), a
pamphlet published by The Tintometer, Ltd. Any basic book on color, of
course, contains a detailed explanation; see, for example, Evans, pp.
205ff.; The Science of Color (1953), pp. 254-334; Burnham,
Hanes, and Bartleson, pp. 123-150; Wright pp. 96-160. Also see such
articles as Deane B. Judd, "1931 I.C.I. Standard Observer and Coordinate
System for Colorimetry," Journal of the Optical Society of
America [JOSA], XXIII (1933), 359-374. The
American
Standards Association Methods of Measuring and Specifying
Colors (in CIE terms), Standard Z58.7 (1951), is reprinted in
JOSA, XLI (1951), 431-439. For information on the
equipment,
see Arthur C. Hardy, "A Recording Photoelectric Color Analyser,"
JOSA, XVIII (1929), 96-117, "A New Recording
Spectrophotometer," JOSA, XXV (1935), 305-311, and
Handbook of
Colorimetry (1936); E. J. King and D. S. Robdell, "An
Experimental
Color Comparator," JOSA, XLI (1951), 830-835; Richard S.
Hunter, "Color Difference Meters for Precision and Accuracy,"
Farbe, X (1961), 173-192; J. M. Adams and S. Bergling, "A
Comparison of Colorimeters," Printing Technology, VIII
(1964), 16-27. For modifications in the system, see David L. MacAdam,
"Projective Transformations of I.C.I. Color Specifications,"
JOSA, XXVII (1937), 294-299; and Günter Wyszecki,
"Proposal for a New Color Difference Formula," JOSA, LIII
(1963), 1318-1319 (cf. LIII, 1012).
MUNSELL. Dorothy Nickerson, "History of the Munsell Color
System and Its Scientific Application," JOSA, XXX (1940),
575-586; John E. Tyler and Arthur C. Hardy, "An Analysis of the Original
Munsell Color System," JOSA, XXX (1940), 587-590;
Dorothy
Nickerson, "The Munsell Color System," Illuminating
Engineering, XLI (1946), 549-560 ("the most widely known and
useful of color order systems"); Maitland Graves, Color
Fundamentals (1952), pp. 134-151; Method of Specifying
Color
by the Munsell System (American Society for Testing and Materials,
Method D1535-58T, 1958). In 1921 the Strathmore Paper Company issued
a handsome book, A Grammar of Color, in which the colors
of
the paper samples were specified in Munsell terms; in the same volume T.
M. Cleland published "A Practical Description of the Munsell Color
System" (pp. 13-26). Another early discussion is Irwin G. Priest, K. S.
Gibson, and H. J. McNichols, An Examination of the Munsell
Color System (Technologic Papers of the Bureau of Standards, No.
167, 30 September 1920). Norman Macbeth, in "Munsell Value Scales for
Judging Reflectance," Illuminating Engineering, XLIV
(1949),
106-108, discusses one of the special Munsell charts. Measurements in CIE
terms are reported in J. J. Glenn and J. T. Killian, "Trichromatic Analysis
of the Munsell Book of Color," JOSA, XXX
(1940),
609-616; Kenneth L. Kelly, Kasson S. Gibson, and Dorothy Nickerson,
"Tristimulus Specification of the Munsell Book of Color from
Spectrophotometric Measurements," JOSA, XXXIII (1943),
355-376, or Journal of Research of the National Bureau of
Standards, XXXI (1943), 55-76; Walter C. Granville, Dorothy
Nickerson, and Carl E. Foss, "Trichromatic Specifications for Intermediate
and Special Colors of the Munsell System," JOSA, XXXIII
(1943), 376-385; Josephine G. Brennan and Sidney M. Newhall, "ICI
Specifications of Difference Limens for Munsell
Hue, Value, and Chroma," JOSA, XXXVIII (1948), 696-702;
Dorothy Nickerson and Davis H. Wilson, "Munsell Reference Colors Now
Specified for Nine Illuminants," Illuminating Engineering,
XLV
(1950), 507-517 (cf. XL, 159-171).
On the problem of color spacing and equal psychological steps,
expressed generally in Munsell terms, see Dorothy Nickerson, "Color
Measurements in Psychological Terms," JOSA, XXI (1931),
643-650; Sidney M. Newhall, "The Ratio Method in the Review of the
Munsell Colors," American Journal of Psychology, LII
(1939),
394-405; Domina Eberle Spencer, "A Metric for Color Space,"
JOSA, XXXII (1942), 744 (summary); Parry Moon and D.
E.
Spencer, "Geometric Formulation of Classical Color Harmony,"
JOSA, XXXIV (1944), 46-59; Arthur Pope, "Notes on the
Problem of Color Harmony and the Geometry of Color Space,"
JOSA, XXXIV (1944), 759-765. In 1943 some of the original
specifications in the Munsell Book of Color were modified
in
terms of the CIE coordinate system and standard observer, and the results
are referred to as the "Munsell renotation system" (as opposed to "book
notation"): see Sidney M. Newhall, Dorothy Nickerson, and Deane B.
Judd, "Final
Report of the OSA Subcommittee on the Spacing of the Munsell Colors,"
JOSA, XXXIII (1943), 385-418 (cf. XXX, 617-645); Dorothy
Nickerson and Sidney M. Newhall, "A Psychological Color Solid,"
JOSA, XXXIII (1943), 419-422; Dorothy Nickerson,
"Spacing
of the Munsell Colors," Illuminating Engineering, XL (1945),
373-386; Dorothy Nickerson, Josephine T. Tomaszewski, and Thomas F.
Boyd, "Colorimetric Specifications of Munsell Repaints,"
JOSA, XLIII (1953), 163-171; Deane B. Judd and
Günter Wyszecki, "Extension of the Munsell Renotation System to Very Dark
Colors," JOSA, XLVI (1956), 281-284; Werner C.
Rheinboldt
and John P. Menard, "Mechanized Conversion of Colorimetric Data to
Munsell Renotations," JOSA, L (1960), 802-807. A limited
edition of a Munsell Renotation Color Book is announced in
JOSA, LIV (1964), 851. The basis for a set of chips,
systematically sampling the color solid and truly representing equal
perceptual
differences, is set forth by Günter Wyszecki, "A Regular
Rhombohedral Lattice Sampling of Munsell Renotation Space,"
JOSA, XLIV (1954), 725-734; the Committee on Uniform
Color Scales of the Optical Society of America is working on the
preparation of such a system.
OSTWALD. J. Scott Taylor, A Simple Explanation of the
Ostwald Colour System (1935); Herman Zeishold, "Philosophy of
the
Ostwald Color System," JOSA, XXXIV (1944), 355-360;
Carl
E. Foss, Dorothy Nickerson, and Walter C. Granville, "Analysis of the
Ostwald Color System," JOSA, XXXIV (1944), 361-381;
Egbert Jacobson, Basic Color: An Interpretation of the
Ostwald Color System (1948). For a comparison of the merits of the
two systems, see Milton E. Bond and Dorothy Nickerson, "Color-Order
Systems, Munsell and Ostwald," JOSA, XXXII (1942),
709-719. The Ostwald system has had a number of enthusiastic supporters
who have developed their own applications of it, notably Faber Birren in
his many books. In Color Dimensions (1934), after praising
Ostwald as the "greatest scientist ever to devote a large portion of time and
energy to color harmony" (p. 35) and after pointing out that "the vast
majority of systems so far invented are utterly
spurious and impractical" (p. 4), Birren presents his own version of
Ostwald, the Color Equation (based on the spinning of Maxwell disks
—
cf. footnote 15 above), and declares that with it "the problem of color
standardization — so long a complex affair — has been
adequately
solved" (p. 57). Hilaire Hiler, in Color Harmony and
Pigments
(1942), expresses his admiration of Ostwald before explaining his own
Color Circle, Color Piano, and cylindrical Color Solid; J. A. V. Judson
bases his textbook, A Handbook of Colour (1935; rev. ed.,
1938), on Ostwald; The Color Helm (1932, 1940), designed
by
J. P. Gangler for Fiatelle, Inc., uses the Ostwald system; and The
New Color Culler (1951, 1960) of the Desarco Corporation contains
eleven Ostwald triangles.
BRITISH COLOUR COUNCIL. See Robert F. Wilson, "Colour and
Colour Nomenclature," Journal of the Royal Society of Arts,
LXXXIII (1934-35), 307-323, for a sketch of the Council's history,
activities, and Dictionary.
OTHER SYSTEMS. (1) Color Card Association.
Margaret Hayden Rorke, "The Work of the Textile Color Card
Association," JOSA, XXI (1931), 651-653. (2)
DIN-Farbenkarte. Manfred Richter, "Das System der
DIN-Farbenkarte," Farbe, I (1952-53), 85-98; Hellmut
Goeroldt, "Die Herstellung des Entwurfs der DIN-Farbenkarte,"
Farbe, I (1952-53), 128-134; "Normblatt-Entwurf DIN 6164:
DIN-Farbenkarte," Farbe, I (1952-53), 147-158; Richter,
"The
Official German Standard Color Chart," JOSA, XLV (1955),
223-226; H. E. Kundt and Günter Wyszecki, "Zusammenhang
zwischen Munsell und DIN-System," Farbe, IV (1955),
289-293; Richter, "Die Beziehung zwischen den Farbmasszahlen nach DIN
6164 und den Ostwald-Masszahlen," Farbe, VI (1957),
49-62.
(3) Villalobos Colour Atlas. Cf. Carl E. Foss's review in the
Inter-Society Color Council News Letter, No. 82 (May
1949),
p. 8. (4) Maerz-Paul. M. Rea Paul describes the work in
"Dictionary of Color," JOSA, XXI (1931), 358-360. (5)
Plochere. Before their Plochere Color System,
Gladys and Gustave Plochere had produced the Plochere Color
Guide (1940) and Color and Color Names (1946). (6)
Federal Standards. See "New Federal Standard on Colors,"
JOSA, XLVII (1957), 330-334; examples of other
governmental
standards are the National Bureau of Standards chart of colors for kitchen
and bathroom accessories, the Army's color card for sewing threads, the
Bureau of Federal Supply's samples of colors for upholstery leather, the
Maritime Commission's standard colors for flags and for paint, the Bureau
of Ships' standards for electrical insulation, and so forth. Cf. British
Standard 2660, Colours for Building and Decorative Paints
(British Standards Institution, 1955); RAL-Farbtonregister 840R
(Muster-Schmidt KG, Göttingen). Standards and specifications are also
published by the American Standards Association
(10 East 40th Street, New York City 10016) and the American Society for
Testing and Materials (1916 Race Street, Philadelphia 19103). The former,
in its Standard Z44-1942, Specification and Description of
Color, recommended the Munsell system. The latter, in its catalogue
of publications, lists some sixty pamphlets on color tests and measurement,
dealing with dyes, acids, plastics, varnishes, petroleum products, etc. It has
also published an extension of the three-attribute system of color description
to take into account the total appearance of engineering materials:
Visual Appearance: A Five-Attribute System of
Describing (STP 297; 1961). (7) Ridgway. Before his
famous 1912 work, Ridgway had published A Nomenclature of
Colors
for Naturalists (1886), with 186 samples. See D.H.Hamly, "Robert
Ridgway's Color Standards," Science, CIX (1949), 605-608.
(8)
Other Special Charts. A bibliographer wishing to survey even
more widely among the
alternative systems might glance at the following: the National Philatelical
Society's Color Chart of 1884 or B.W.Warhurst's
Color
Dictionary of 1899 (now Stanley Gibbons' Colour Guide for
Stamp Collectors, with 75 colors); René Oberthü and
Henri
Dauthenay's Répertoire de couleurs pour aider à la
determination des couleurs des fleurs, des feuillages et des
fruits for the Société française des
chrysanthémistes in
1905, with 1356 colors, or the Fischer Color Chart of the
New
England Gladiolus Society, revised in 1944, with 108 colors on a circular
board (recommended also for geneticists in 1933 by Edgar Anderson, in
Science, LXXVIII, 150-151); The Colorizer
(1947)
showing paint proportions for 1298 colors, or Pratt & Lambert's
DeLuxe Color Book (1954?); C.J.Jorgensen's The
Mastery
of Color (1906) or Sterling B. McDonald's Color Harmony
with
the McDonald Calibrator (1949);
E.A.Séguy's Code universel des couleurs (1936), with
720
colors on 55 printed plates, or the Cheskin Color System
(Color
Research Institute of America, 1949), with 4800 colors on 48 printed hue
charts;Hesselgren's Color Atlas (1955); the Colour
Index of the Society of Dyers and Colourists (2nd ed., 4 vols.,
1956); Ralph S. Palmer and E.M.Reilly's Concise Color
Standard for the American Ornithologists' Union (1956); Faber
Birren's The American Colorist (1939); Edward Friel's
The Friel System: A Language of Color
(1961); and
even musical systems of color
— with scales, keyboards, and the like — such as
The
Taylor
System of Color Harmony (1921) and Maud Miles'
A
Suggested
Plan for a National Color Standard (1922).
NOMENCLATURE. There is a historical account of the development
of color nomenclature at the beginning of the Maerz-Paul
Dictionary. Further discussions of nomenclature include
Milton
Bradley's pamphlet Some Criticisms of Popular Color Definitions
and
Suggestions for a Better Color Nomenclature (n.d.); M. Luckiesh,
The Language of Color (1918); "Report of the Committee on
Colorimetry for 1920-21," JOSA, VI (1922), 527-596
(section
II on nomenclature); "Report of the Committee on Color Terminology
Questionnaire," JOSA, XIII (1926), 43-57; Loyd A. Jones,
"Colorimetry: Preliminary Draft of a Report on Nomenclature and
Definitions," JOSA, XXVII (1937), 207-213; Colour Group
of
the Physical Society, Report on Colour Terminology (1948);
Arthur Pope, The Language of Drawing and Painting (1929;
rev. ed., 1949), esp. pp. 3-34. The question of color terminology in
relation to theater gelatins has been taken up in "Names for
Colors," Theatre Arts Monthly, XVI (July 1932), 604, 604a,
604b; and by Deane B. Judd in A System for Specifying Theater
Gelatins (Report to ISCC, February 1938). Kenneth L. Kelly, in
"Color Designations for Lights," Journal of Research of the National
Bureau of Standards, XXXI (1943), 271-278, shows the applicability
of the ISCC-NBS system to self-luminous sources and gives a good
historical checklist. A later effort to define the boundaries of colors is the
dictionary part of Kornerup and Wanscher's Reinhold Color
Atlas (1962).
TOLERANCES. The Nickerson formula for the Index of Fading is
as follows: (average chroma / 5) x (difference in hue / 3) + (difference in
chroma / 2) + difference in value. For an explanation of the basis for the
formula, see Dorothy Nickerson, "The Specification of Color Tolerances,"
Textile Research, VI (1936), 505-514; and "How Can Results
of Fading Tests Be Expressed?", in ASTM Standards on Textile
Materials (October 1936), pp. 238-241. Cf. "The Inter-Society
Color
Council Symposium on Color Tolerance," American Journal of
Psychology, LII (1939), 383-448; F. Scofield, "A Method of
Representing Color," ASTM Bulletin, No. 102 (January
1940),
pp. 11-12; Dorothy Nickerson and Keith F. Stultz, "Color Tolerance
Specification," JOSA, XXXIV (1944), 550-570; and "Interim
Method of Measuring and Specifying Color Rendering of Light Sources,"
Illuminating Engineering, LVII (1962), 471-495.
COLORS OF PAPERS AND INKS. Federal Specification 9310,
Paper Specification Standards (No. 4, 1 May 1965), includes
(as
Part 3) samples of eight colored papers for government use and describes
briefly (in Part 2) the methods of color measurement by visual comparison
(ASTM D1729-60T) and by spectral reflectivity. The annual
Bibliography of Papermaking and U.S. Patents, published by
TAPPI (Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry), contains a
section on color. Cf. W. B. Van Arsdel, "Color Specification in the Pulp
and Paper Industry," JOSA, XXI (1931), 347-357; F. A.
Steele,
"The Optical Characteristics of Paper," Paper Trade Journal,
C (21 March 1935), TS151-156; CI (24 October 1935), TS245-249; CIV
(25 February 1937), TS129-130; Institute of Paper Chemistry, "Color and
Color Measurements," Paper Trade Journal, CV (1937),
TS285-306; and the Strathmore Paper Company's A Grammar of
Color (see under Munsell above). On "whiteness":
D. L. MacAdam, "The Specification of Whiteness," JOSA,
XXIV (1934), 188-191; Deane B. Judd, "A Method for Determining
Whiteness of Paper," Paper Trade Journal, C (23 May 1935),
TS266-268; CIII (20 August 1936), TS154-160; V. G. W. Harrison,
The Measurement of "Shades" of
"White" Papers (PATRA Reports Nos. 2-3,
1938-39). Some of the atlases issued by the paper and the ink trades are
Charles J. Schott's Modifications of Pigment
Colors as Used in Printing Inks (1929), with 502 cards; IPI
Simplified Color Matching Chart (1935), with 90 printed
color
samples;
Colors for Paper (Calco Chemical Company, Heller
& Merz Division, 1938); John Henry Graff,
A Color Atlas for
Fiber Identification (Institute of Paper Chemistry, 1940);
Cheskin Color System (1949); Jack W. White,
The
Lithographic Technical Foundation Color Chart (1957);
ROP
Color Ink Book (ANPA Institute, 1963), with mixing ratios for
newspaper inks.
Notes