The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Color Notation, by Albert H. Munsell This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: A Color Notation A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, Value and Chroma Author: Albert H. Munsell Release Date: July 14, 2008 [EBook #26054] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COLOR NOTATION *** Produced by Louise Hope, K.D. Thornton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net This text uses utf-8 (unicode) file encoding. If the apostrophes and quotation marks in this paragraph appear as garbage, you may have an incompatible browser or unavailable fonts. First, make sure that the browser’s “character set” or “file encoding” is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You may also need to change your browser’s default font. see caption A BALANCED COLOR SPHERE pastel sketch A COLOR NOTATION By A. H. MUN S ELL A MEASURED COLOR SYSTEM, BASED ON THE THREE QUALITIES Hue, Value, and Chroma with Illustrative Models, Charts, and a Course of Study Arranged for Teachers 2nd Edition Revised & Enlarged Geo. H. Ellis Co. BOSTON 1907 Copyright, 1905 by A. H. Munsell All rights reserved Entered at Stationers’ Hall AUTHOR’S PREFACE. At various times during the past ten years, the gist of these pages has been given in the form of lectures to students of the Normal Art School, the Art Teachers’ Association, and the Twentieth Century Club. In October of last year it was presented before the Society of Arts of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at the suggestion of Professor Charles R. Cross. Grateful acknowledgment is due to many whose helpful criticism has aided in its development, notably Mr. Benjamin Ives Gilman, Secretary of the Museum of Fine Arts, Professor Harry E. Clifford, of the Institute, and Mr. Myron T. Pritchard, master of the Everett School, Boston. a. h. m. Chestnut Hill, Mass., 1905. PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. The new illustrations in this edition are facsimiles of children’s studies with measured color, made under ordinary school-room conditions. Notes and appendices are introduced to meet the questions most frequently asked, stress being laid on the unbalanced nature of colors usually given to beginners, and the mischief done by teaching that red, yellow, and blue are primary hues. The need of a scientific basis for color values is also emphasized, believing this to be essential in the discipline of the color sense. a. h. m. Chestnut Hill, Mass., 1907. 3 4 INTRODUCTION. The lack of definiteness which is at present so general in color nomenclature, is due in large measure to the failure to appreciate the fundamental characteristics on which color differences depend. For the physicist, the expression of the wave length of any particular light is in most cases sufficient, but in the great majority of instances where colors are referred to, something more than this and something easier of realization is essential. The attempt to express color relations by using merely two dimensions, or two definite characteristics, can never lead to a successful system. For this reason alone the system proposed by Mr. Munsell, with its three dimensions of hue, value, and chroma, is a decided step in advance over any previous proposition. By means of these three dimensions it is possible to completely express any particular color, and to differentiate it from colors ordinarily classed as of the same general character. The expression of the essential characteristics of a color is, however, not all that is necessary. There must be some accurate and not too complicated system for duplicating these characteristics, one which shall not alter with time or place, and which shall be susceptible of easy and accurate redetermination. From the teaching standpoint also a logical and sequential development is absolutely essential. This Mr. Munsell seems to have most successfully accomplished. In the determination of his relationships he has made use of distinctly scientific methods, and there seems no reason why his suggestions should not lead to an exact and definite system of color essentials. The Munsell photometer, which is briefly referred to, is an instrument of wide range, high precision, and great sensitiveness, and permits the valuations which are necessary in his system to be accurately made. We all appreciate the necessity for some improvement in our ideas of color, and the natural inference is that the training should be begun in early youth. The present system in its modified form possesses elements of simplicity and attractiveness which should appeal to children, and give them almost unconsciously a power of discrimination which would prove of immense value in later life. The possibilities in this system are very great, and it has been a privilege to be allowed during the past few years to keep in touch with its development. I cannot but feel that we have here not only a rational color nomenclature, but also a system of scientific importance and of practical value. H. E. Clifford. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, February, 1905. CONTENTS. Introduction by Professor Clifford. Part I. Chapter Paragraph I. COLOR NAMES: red, yellow, green, blue, purple 1 Appendix I.—Misnomers for Color. II. COLOR QUALITIES: hue, value, chroma 20 Appendix II.—Scales of Hue, Value, and Chroma. III. COLOR MIXTURE: a tri-dimensional balance 54 Appendix III.—False Color Balance. IV. PRISMATIC COLORS 87 Appendix IV.—Children’s Color Studies. V. THE PIGMENT COLOR SPHERE: true color balance 102 Appendix V.—Schemes based on Brewster’s Theory. VI. COLOR NOTATION: a written color system 132 VII. COLOR HARMONY: a measured relation 146 Part II. A COLOR SYSTEM AND COURSE OF STUDY BASED ON THE COLOR SOLID AND ITS CHARTS. Arranged for nine years of school life. GLOSSARY OF COLOR TERMS. Taken from the Century Dictionary. 5 7 INDEX (by paragraphs). CHAPTER I. COLOR NAMES. Writing from Samoa to Sidney Colvin in London, Stevenson1 says: “Perhaps in the same way it might amuse you to send us any pattern of wall paper that might strike you as cheap, pretty, and suitable for a room in a hot and extremely bright climate. It should be borne in mind that our climate can be extremely dark, too. Our sitting-room is to be in varnished wood. The room I have particularly in mind is a sort of bed and sitting room, pretty large, lit on three sides, and the colour in favour of its proprietor at present is a topazy yellow. But then with what colour to relieve it? For a little work-room of my own at the back I should rather like to see some patterns of unglossy—well, I’ll be hanged if I can describe this red. It’s not Turkish, and it’s not Roman, and it’s not Indian; but it seems to partake of the last two, and yet it can’t be either of them, because it ought to be able to go with vermilion. Ah, what a tangled web we weave! Anyway, with what brains you have left choose me and send me some—many—patterns of the exact shade.” (1) Where could be found a more delightful cry for some rational way to describe color? He wants “a topazy yellow” and a red that is not Turkish nor Roman nor Indian, but that “seems to partake of the last two, and yet it can’t be either of them.” As a cap to the climax comes his demand for “patterns of the exact shade.” Thus one of the clearest and most forceful writers of English finds himself unable to describe the color he wants. And why? Simply because popular language does not clearly state a single one of the three qualities united in every color, and which must be known before one may even hope to convey his color conceptions to another. (2) The incongruous and bizarre nature of our present color names must appear to any thoughtful person. Baby blue, peacock blue, Nile green, apple green, lemon yellow, straw yellow, rose pink, heliotrope, royal purple, Magenta, Solferino, plum, and automobile are popular terms, conveying different ideas to different persons and utterly failing to define colors. The terms used for a single hue, such as pea green, sea green, olive green, grass green, sage green, evergreen, invisible green, are not to be trusted in ordering a piece of cloth. They invite mistakes and disappointment. Not only are they inaccurate: they are inappropriate. Can we imagine musical tones called lark, canary, cockatoo, crow, cat, dog, or mouse, because they bear some distant resemblance to the cries of those animals? See paragraph 131. Color needs a system. (3) Music is equipped with a system by which it defines each sound in terms of its pitch, intensify, and duration, without dragging in loose allusions to the endlessly varying sounds of nature. So should color be supplied with an appropriate system, based on the hue, value, and chroma 2 of our sensations, and not attempting to describe them by the indefinite and varying colors of natural objects. The system now to be considered portrays the three dimensions of color, and measures each by an appropriate scale. It does not rest upon the whim of an individual, but upon physical measurements made possible by special color apparatus. The results may be tested by any one who comes to the problem with “a clear mind, a good eye, and a fair supply of patience.” Clear mental images make clear speech. Vague thoughts find vague utterance. (4) The child gathers flowers, hoards colored beads, chases butterflies, and begs for the gaudiest painted toys. At first his strong color sensations are sufficiently described by the simple terms of red, yellow, green, blue, and purple. But he soon sees that some are light, while others are dark, and later comes to perceive that each hue has many grayer degrees. Now, if he wants to describe a particular red,—such as that of his faded cap,—he is not content to merely call it red, since he is aware of other red objects which are very unlike it. So he gropes for means to define this particular red; and, having no standard of comparison,—no scale by which to estimate,—he hesitatingly says it is a “sort of dull red.” (5) Thus early is he cramped by the poverty of color language. He has never been given an appropriate word for this color quality, and has to borrow one signifying the opposite of sharp, which belongs to edge tools rather than to colors. Most color terms are borrowed from other senses. (6) When his older sister refers to the “tone” of her green dress, or speaks of the “key of color” in a picture, he is naturally confused, because tone and key are terms associated in his mind with music. It may not be long before he will hear that “a color note has been pitched too high,” or that a certain artist “paints in a minor key.” All these terms lead to mixed and indefinite ideas, and leave him unequipped for the clear expression of color qualities. (7) Musical art is not so handicapped. It has an established scale with measured intervals and definite terms. Likewise, coloristic art must establish a scale, measure its intervals, and name its qualities in unmistakable fashion. Color has three dimensions. (8) It may sound strange to say that color has three dimensions, but it is easily proved by the fact that each of them can be measured. Thus in the case of the boy’s faded cap its redness or hue 3 is determined by one instrument; the amount of light in the red, which is its value, 3 is found by another instrument; while still a third instrument determines the purity or chroma 3 of the red. 9 10 11 12 see text see text The omission of any one of these three qualities leaves us in doubt as to the character of a color, just as truly as the character of this studio would remain undefined if the length were omitted and we described it as 22 feet wide by 14 feet high. The imagination would be free to ascribe any length it chose, from 25 to 100 feet. This length might be differently conceived by every individual who tried to supply the missing factor. (9) To illustrate the tri-dimensional nature of colors. Suppose we peel an orange and divide it in five parts, leaving the sections slightly connected below (Fig. 4). Then let us say that all the reds we have ever seen are gathered in one of the sections, all yellows in another, all greens in the third, blues in the fourth, and purples in the fifth. Next we will assort these hues in each section so that the lightest are near the top, and grade regularly to the darkest near the bottom. A white wafer connects all the sections at the top, and a black wafer may be added beneath. See Plate I. (10) The fruit is then filled with assorted colors, graded from white to black, according to their values, and disposed by their hues in the five sections. A slice near the top will uncover light values in all hues, and a slice near the bottom will find dark values in the same hues. A slice across the middle discloses a circuit of hues all of middle value; that is, midway between the extremes of white and black. (11) Two color dimensions are thus shown in the orange, and it remains to exhibit the third, which is called chroma, or strength of color. To do this, we have only to take each section in turn, and, without disturbing the values already assorted, shove the grayest in toward the narrow edge, and grade outward to the purest on the surface. Each slice across the fruit still shows the circuit of hues in one uniform value; but the strong chromas are at the outside, while grayer and grayer chromas make a gradation inward to neutral gray at the centre, where all trace of color disappears. The thin edges of all sections unite in a scale of gray from black to white, no matter what hue each contains. The curved outside of each section shows its particular hue graded from black to white; and, should the section be cut at right angles to the thin edge, it would show the third dimension,—chroma,—for the color is graded evenly from the surface to neutral gray. A pin stuck in at any point traces the third dimension. A color sphere can be used to unite the three dimensions of hue, value, and chroma. (12) Having used the familiar structure of the orange as a help in classifying colors, let us substitute a geometric solid, like a sphere, 4 and make use of geographical terms. The north pole is white. The south pole is black. The equator is a circuit of middle reds, yellows, greens, blues, and purples. Parallels above the equator describe this circuit in lighter values, and parallels below trace it in darker values. The vertical axis joining black and white is a neutral scale of gray values, while perpendiculars to it (like a pin thrust into the orange) are scales of chroma. Thus our color notions may be brought into an orderly relation by the color sphere. Any color describes its light and strength by its location in the solid or on the surface, and is named by its place in the combined scales of hue, value, and chroma. Two dimensions fail to describe a color. (13) Much of the popular misunderstanding of color is caused by ignorance of these three dimensions or by an attempt to make two dimensions do the work of three. (14) Flat diagrams showing hues and values, but omitting to define chromas, are as incomplete as would be a map of Switzerland with the mountains left out, or a harbor chart without indications of the depth of water. We find by aid of the measuring instruments that pigments are very unequal in this third dimension,—chroma,—producing mountains and valleys on the color sphere, so that, when the color system is worked out in pigments and charted, some colors must be traced well out beyond the spherical surface (paragraphs 125–127). Indeed, a color tree 5 is needed to display by the unequal levels and lengths of its branches the individuality of pigment colors. But, whatever solid or figure is used to illustrate color relations, it must combine the three scales of hue, value, and chroma, and these definite scales furnish a name for every color based upon its intrinsic qualities, and free from terms purloined in other sensations, or caught from the fluctuating colors of natural objects. How this system describes the spectrum. (15) The solar spectrum and rainbow are the most stimulating color experiences with which we are acquainted. Can they be described by this solid system? (16) The lightest part of the spectrum is a narrow field of greenish yellow, grading into darker red on one side and into darker green upon the other, followed by still darker blue and purple. Upon the sphere the values of these spectral colors trace a path high up on the yellow section, near white, and slanting downward across the red and green sections, which are traversed near the level of the equator, it goes on to cross the blue and purple well down toward black. (17) This forms an inclined circuit, crossing the equator at opposite points, and suggests the ecliptic or the rings of Saturn (see outside cover). A pale rainbow would describe a slanting circuit nearer white, and a dimmer one would fall within the sphere, while an intensely brilliant spectrum projects far beyond the surface of the sphere, so greatly is the chroma of its hues in excess of the common pigments with which we work out our problems. (18) At the outset it is well to recognize the place of the spectrum in this system, not only because it is the established basis of scientific study, but especially because the invariable order assumed by its hues is the only stable hint which Nature affords us in her infinite color play. (19) All our color sensations are included in the color solid. None are left out by its scales of hue, value, and chroma. Indeed, the imagination is led to conceive and locate still purer colors than any we now possess. Such increased degrees of color sensation can be named, and clearly conveyed by symbols to another person as soon as the system is 13 14 15 comprehended. 1. Vailima Letters, Oct. 8, 1902. 2. See color variables in Glossary. 3. For definitions of Hue, Value, and Chroma, see paragraphs 20–23. 4. See frontispiece. 5. For description of the Color Tree see paragraphs 33 and 34. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I. Misnomers for Color. The Century Dictionary helps an intelligent study of color by its clear definitions and cross-references to hue, value, and chroma,—leaving no excuse for those who would confuse these three qualities or treat a degree of any quality as the quality itself. Obscure statements were frequent in text-books before these new definitions appeared. Thus the term “shade” should be applied only to darkened values, and not to hues or chromas. Yet one writer says, “This yellow shades into green,” which is certainly a change of hue, and then speaks of “a brighter shade” in spite of his evident intention to suggest a stronger chroma, which is neither a shade nor brighter luminosity. Children gain wrong notions of “tint and shade” from the so-called standard colors shown to them, which present “tints” of red and blue much darker than the “shades” of yellow. This is bewildering, and, like their elders, they soon drop into the loose habit of calling any degree of color-strength or color-light a “shade.” Value is a better term to describe the light which color reflects to the eye, and all color values, light or dark, are measured by the value-scale. “Tone” is used in a confusing way to mean different things. Thus in the same sentence we see it refers to a single touch of the brush,—which is not a tone, but a paint spot,—and then we read that the “tone of the canvas is golden.” This cannot mean that each paint spot is the color of gold, but is intended to suggest that the various objects depicted seem enveloped in a yellow atmosphere. Tone is, in fact, a musical term appropriate to sound, but out of place in color. It seems better to call the brush touch a color-spot: then the result of an harmonious relation between all the spots is color-envelope, or, as in Rood, “the chromatic composition.” “Intensity” is a misleading term, if chroma be intended, for it depends on the relative light of spectral hues. It is a degree rather than a quality, as appears in the expressions, intense heat, light, sound,—intensity of stimulus and reaction. Being a degree of many qualities, it should not be used to describe the quality itself. The word becomes especially unfit when used to describe two very different phases of a color,—as its intense illumination, where the chroma is greatly weakened, and the strongest chroma which is found in a much lower value. “Purity” is also to be avoided in speaking of pigments, for not one of our pigments represents a single pure ray of the spectrum. Examples are constantly found of the mental blur caused by such unfortunate terms, and, since misunderstanding becomes impossible with measured degrees of hue, value, and chroma, it seems only a question of time when they will take the place of tint, tone, shade, purity and intensity. CHAPTER II. COLOR QUALITIES. (20) The three color qualities are hue, value, and chroma. HUE is the name of a color. (21) Hue is the quality by which we distinguish one color from another, as a red from a yellow, a green, a blue, or a purple. This names the hue, but does not tell whether it is light or dark, weak or strong,—leaving us in doubt as to its value and its chroma. Science attributes this quality to difference in the LENGTH of ether waves impinging on the retina, which causes the sensation of color. The wave length M. 5269 gives a sensation of green, while M. 6867 gives a sensation of red. 6 VALUE is the light of a color. (22) Value is the quality by which we distinguish a light color from a dark one. Color values are loosely called tints and shades, but the terms are frequently misapplied. A tint should be a light value, and a shade should be darker; but the word “shade” has become a general term for any sort of color, so that a shade of yellow may prove to be lighter than a tint of blue. A photometric 7 scale of value places all colors in relation to the extremes of white and black, but cannot describe their hue or their chroma. Science describes this quality as due to difference in the height or amplitude of ether waves impinging on the retina. Small amplitudes of the wave lengths given in paragraph 21 produce the sensation of dark green and dark red: larger amplitudes give the sensation of lighter green and lighter red. CHROMA is the strength of a color. 16 17 18 19 see text see text (23) Chroma is the quality by which we distinguish a strong color from a weak one. To say that a rug is strong in color gives no hint of its hues or values, only its chromas. Loss of chroma is loosely called fading, but this word is frequently used to include changes of value and hue. Take two autumn leaves, identical in color, and expose one to the weather, while the other is waxed and pressed in a book. Soon the exposed leaf fades into a neutral gray, while the protected one preserves its strong chroma almost intact. If, in fading, the leaf does not change its hue or its value, there is only a loss of chroma, but the fading process is more likely to induce some change of the other two qualities. Fading, however, cannot define these changes. Science describes chroma as the purity of one wave length separated from all others. Other wave lengths, intermingling, make its chroma less pure. A beam of daylight can combine all wave lengths in such balance as to give the sensation of whiteness, because no single wave is in excess. 8 (24) The color sphere (see Fig. 1) is a convenient model to illustrate these three qualities,—hue, value, and chroma,— and unite them by measured scales. (25) The north pole of the color sphere is white, and the south pole black. Value or luminosity of colors ranges between these two extremes. This is the vertical scale, to be memorized as V, the initial for both value and vertical. Vertical movement through color may thus be thought of as a change of value, but not as a change of hue or of chroma. Hues of color are spread around the equator of the sphere. This is a horizontal scale, memorized as H, the initial for both hue and horizontal. Horizontal movement around the color solid is thus thought of as a change of hue, but not of value or of chroma. A line inward from the strong surface hues to the neutral gray axis, traces the graying of each color, which is loss of chroma, and conversely a line beginning with neutral gray at the vertical axis, and becoming more and more colored until it passes outside the sphere, is a scale of chroma, which is memorized as C, the initial both for chroma and centre. Thus the sphere lends its three dimensions to color description, and a color applied anywhere within, without, or on its surface is located and named by its degree of hue, of value, and of chroma. HUES first appeal to the child, VALUES next, and CHROMAS last. (26) Color education begins with ability to recognize and name certain hues, such as red, yellow, green, blue, and purple (see paragraphs 182 and 183). Nature presents these hues in union with such varieties of value and chroma that, unless there be some standard of comparison, it is impossible for one person to describe them intelligently to another. (27) The solar spectrum forms a basis for scientific color analysis, taught in technical schools; but it is quite beyond the comprehension of a child. He needs something more tangible and constantly in view to train his color notions. He needs to handle colors, place them side by side for comparison, imitate them with crayons, paints, and colored stuffs, so as to test the growth of perception, and learn by simple yet accurate terms to describe each by its hue, its value, and its chroma. (28) Pigments, rather than the solar spectrum, are the practical agents of color work. Certain of them, selected and measured by this system (see Chapter V.), will be known as middle colors, because they stand midway in the scales of value and chroma. These middle colors are preserved in imperishable enamels, 9 so that the child may handle and fix them in his memory, and thus gain a permanent basis for comparing all degrees of color. He learns to grade each middle color to its extremes of value and chroma. (29) Experiments with crayons and paints, and efforts to match middle colors, train his color sense to finer perceptions. Having learned to name colors, he compares them with the enamels of middle value, and can describe how light or dark they are. Later he perceives their differences of strength, and, comparing them with the enamels of middle chroma, can describe how weak or strong they are. Thus the full significance of these middle colors as a practical basis for all color estimates becomes apparent; and, when at a more advanced stage he studies the best examples of decorative color, he will again encounter them in the most beautiful products of Oriental art. Is it possible to define the endless varieties of color? (30) At first glance it would seem almost hopeless to attempt the naming of every kind and degree of color. But, if all these varieties possess the same three qualities, only in different degrees, and if each quality can be measured by a scale, then there is a clue to this labyrinth. A COLOR SPHERE and COLOR TREE to unite hue, value, and chroma. (31) This clue is found in the union of these three qualities by measured scales in a color sphere and color tree. 10 The equator of the sphere 11 may be divided into ten parts, and serve as the scale of hue, marked R, YR, Y, GY, G, BG, B, PB, P, and RP. Its vertical axis may be divided into ten parts to serve as the scale of value, numbered from black (0) to white (10). Any perpendicular to the neutral axis is a scale of chroma. On the plane of the equator this scale is numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, from the centre to the surface. (32) This chroma scale may be raised or lowered to any level of value, always remaining perpendicular to the axis, and serving to measure the chroma of every hue at every level of value. The fact that some colors exceed others to such an extent as to carry them out beyond the sphere is proved by measuring instruments, but the fact is a new one to many persons. (Figs. 2 and 3.) 20 21 22 23 Figure 2. (See Figure 20) The Color Tree (33) For this reason the color tree is a completer model than the sphere, although the simplicity of the latter makes it best for a child’s comprehension. (34) The color tree is made by taking the vertical axis of the sphere, which carries a scale of value, for the trunk. The branches are at right angles to the trunk; and, as in the sphere, they carry the scale of chroma. Colored balls on the branches tell their Hue. In order to show the maxima of color, each branch is attached to the trunk (or neutral axis) at a level demanded by its value,—the yellow nearest white at the top, then the green, red, blue, and purple branches, approaching black in the order of their lower values. It will be remembered that the chroma of the sphere ceased with 5 at the equator. The color tree prolongs this through 6, 7, 8, and 9. The branch ends carry colored balls, representing the most powerful red, yellow, green, blue, and purple pigments which we now possess, and could be lengthened, should stronger chromas be discovered. 12 (35) Such models set up a permanent image of color relations. Every point is self-described by its place in the united scales of hue, value, and chroma. These scales fix each new perception of color in the child’s mind by its situation in the color solid. The importance of such a definite image can hardly be overestimated, for without it one color sensation tends to efface another. When the child looks at a color, and has no basis of comparison, it soon leaves a vague memory that cannot be described. These models, on the contrary, lead to an intelligent estimate of each color in terms of its hue, its value, and its chroma; while the permanent enamels correct any personal bias by a definite standard. (36) Thus defined, a color falls into logical relation with all other colors in the system, and is easily memorized, so that its image may be recalled at any distance of time or place by the notation. (37) These solid models help to memorize and assemble colors and the memory is further strengthened by a simple notation, which records each color so that it cannot be mistaken for any other. By these written scales a child gains an instinctive estimate of relations, so that, when he is delighted with a new color combination, its proportions are noted and understood. (38) Musical art has long enjoyed the advantages of a definite scale and notation. Should not the art of coloring gain by similar definition? The musical scale is not left to personal whim, nor does it change from day to day; and something as clear and stable would be an advantage in training the color sense. (39) Perception of color is crude at first. The child sees only the most obvious distinctions, and prefers the strongest stimulation. But perception soon becomes refined by exercise, and, when a child tries to imitate the subtle colors of nature with paints, he begins to realize that the strongest colors are not the most beautiful,—rather the tempered ones, which may be compared to the moderate sounds in music. To describe these tempered colors, he must estimate their hue, value, and chroma, and be able to describe in what degree his copy departs from the natural color. And, with this gain in perception and imitation of natural color, he finds a strong desire to invent combinations to please his fancy. Thus the study divides into three related attitudes, which may be called recognition, imitation, and invention. Recognition of color is fundamental, but it would be tedious to spend a year or two in formal and dry exercises to train recognition of color alone; for each step in recognition of color is best tested by exercise in its imitation and arrangement. When perception becomes keener, emphasis can be placed on imitation of the colors found in art and in nature, resting finally on the selection and grouping of colors for design. 13 Every color can be recognized, named, matched, imitated, and written by its HUE, VALUE, and CHROMA. (40) The notation used in this system places Hue (expressed by an initial) at the left; Value (expressed by a number) at the right and above a line; and Chroma (also expressed by a number) at the right, below the line. Thus R5/9 means hue (red), value (5) , and will be found to represent the qualities of the pigment vermilion. 14 chroma (9) Hue, value, and chroma unite in every color sensation, but the child cannot grasp them all at once. Hue-difference appeals to him first, and he gains a permanent idea of five principal hues from the enamels of middle colors, learning to name, match, imitate, and finally write them by their initials: R (red), Y (yellow), G (green), B (blue), and P (purple). Intermediates formed by uniting successive pairs are also written by the joined initials, YR (yellow-red), GY (green- yellow), BG (blue-green), PB (purple-blue), and RP (red-purple). (41) Ten differences of hue are as many as a child can render at the outset, yet in matching and imitating them he becomes aware of their light and dark quality, and learns to separate it from hue as value-difference. Middle colors, as implied by that name, stand midway between white and black,—that is, on the equator of the sphere,—so that a middle 24 25 26 Hue Value , H V , Chroma C red will be written R5/, suggesting the steps 6, 7, 8, and 9 which are above the equator, while steps 4, 3, 2, and 1 are below. It is well to show only three values of a color at first; for instance, the middle value contrasted with a light and a dark one. These are written R3/, R5/, R7/. Soon he perceives and can imitate finer differences, and the red scale may be written entire, as R1/, R2/, R3/, R4/, R5/, R6/, R7/, R8/, R9/, with black as 0 and white as 10. (42) Chroma-difference is the third and most subtle color quality. The child is already unconsciously familiar with the middle chroma of red, having had the enamels of middle color always in view, and the red enamel is to be contrasted with the strongest and weakest red chromas obtainable. These he writes R /1, R /5, R /9, seeing that this describes the chromas of red, but leaves out its values. R5/1, R5/5, R5/9, is the complete statement, showing that, while both hue and value are unchanged, the chroma passes from grayish red to middle red (enamel first learned) and out to the strongest red in the chroma scale obtained by vermilion. (43) It may be long before he can imitate the intervening steps of chroma, many children finding it difficult to express more than five steps of the chroma scale, although easily making ten steps of value and from twenty to thirty-five steps of hue. This interesting feature is of psychologic value, and has been followed in the color tree and color sphere. Does such a scientific scheme leave any outlet for feeling and personal expression of beauty? (44) Lest this exact attitude in color study should seem inartistic, compared with the free and almost chaotic methods in use, let it be said that the stage thus far outlined is frankly disciplinary. It is somewhat dry and unattractive, just as the early musical training is fatiguing without inventive exercises. The child should be encouraged at each step to exercise his fancy. (45) Instead of cramping his outlook upon nature, it widens his grasp of color, and stores the memory with finer differences, supplying more material by which to express his sense of coloristic beauty. (46) Color harmony, as now treated, is a purely personal affair, difficult to refer to any clear principles or definite laws. The very terms by which it seeks expression are borrowed from music, and suggest vague analogies that fail when put to the test. Color needs a new set of expressive terms, appropriate to its qualities, before we can make an analysis as to the harmony or discord of our color sensations. (47) This need is supplied in the present system by measured charts, and a notation. Their very construction preserves the balance of colors, as will be shown in the next chapter, while the chapter on harmony (Chapter VII.) shows how harmonious pairs and triads of color may be found by masks with measured intervals. In fact, practice in the use of the charts supplies the imagination with scales and sequences of color quite as definite and quite as easily written as those sound intervals by which the musician conveys to others his sense of harmony. And, although in neither art can training alone make the artist, yet a technical grasp of these formal scales gives acquaintance with the full range of the instrument, and is indispensable to artistic expression. From these color scales each individual is free to choose combinations in accord with his feeling for color harmony. Let us make an outline of the course of color study traced in the preceding pages. 15 PERCEPTION of color. (48) Hue-difference. Middle hues (5 principals). Middle hues (5 intermediates). Middle hues (10 placed in sequence as scale of hue). Value-difference. Light, middle, and dark values (without change of hue). Light, middle, and dark values (traced with 5 principal hues). 10 values traced with each hue. scale of value. The Color Sphere. Chroma-difference. Strong, middle, and weak chroma (without change of hue). Strong, middle and weak chroma (traced with three values without change of hue). Strong, middle, and weak chroma (traced with three values and ten hues). Maxima of color and their gradation to white, black, and gray. The Color Tree. EXPRESSION of color. (49) Matching and imitation of hues (using stuffs, crayons, and paints). Matching and imitation of values and hues (using stuffs, crayons, and paints). Matching and imitation of chromas, values, and hues (using stuffs, crayons, and paints). Notation of color. Initial for hue, numeral above for value, numeral below for chroma. Sequences of color. Two scales united, as hue and value, or chroma and value. Three scales united,—each step a change of hue, value, and chroma. 27 28 29 Balance of color. Opposites of equal value and chroma (R5/5 and BG5/5). Opposites of equal value and unequal chroma (R5/9 and BG5/3). Opposites unequal both in value and chroma (R7/3 and BG3/7). Area as an element of balance. HARMONY of color. (50) Selection of colors that give pleasure. Study of butterfly wings and flowers, recorded by the notation. Study of painted ornament, rugs, and mosaics, recorded by the notation. Personal choice of color pairs, balanced by H, V, C, and area. Personal choice of color triads, balanced by H, V, C, and area. Grouping of colors to suit some practical use: wall papers, rugs, book covers, etc. Their analysis by the written notation. Search for principles of harmony, expressed in measured terms. A definite plan of color study, with freedom as to details of presentation.16 (51) Having memorized these broad divisions of the study, a clever teacher will introduce many a detail, to meet the mood of the class, or correlate this subject with other studies, without for a moment losing the thread of thought or befogging the presentation. But to range at random in the immense field of color sensations, without plan or definite aim in view, only courts fatigue of the retina and a chaotic state of mind. (52) The same broad principles which govern the presentation of other ideas apply with equal force in this study. A little, well apprehended, is better than a mass of undigested facts. If the child is led to discover, or at least to think he is discovering, new things about color, the mind will be kept alert and seek out novel illustrations at every step. Now and then a pupil will be found who leads both teacher and class by intuitive appreciation of color, and it is a subtle question how far such a nature can be helped or hurt by formal exercises. But such an exception is rare, and goes to prove that systematic discipline of the color sense is necessary for most children. (53) Outdoor nature and indoor surroundings offer endless color illustrations. Birds, flowers, minerals, and the objects in daily use take on a new interest when their varied colors are brought into a conscious relation, and clearly named. A tri-dimensional perception, like this sense of color, requires skilful training, and each lesson must be simplified to the last point practicable. It must not be too long, and should lead to some definite result which a child can grasp and express with tolerable accuracy, while its difficulties should be approached by easy stages, so as to avoid failure or discouragement. The success of the present effort is the best incentive to further achievement. 6. See Glossary for definitions of Micron, Photometer, Retina, and Red, also for Hue, Tint, Shade, Value, Color Variables, Luminosity, and Chroma. 7. See Photometer in paragraph 65. 8. See definition of White in Glossary. 9. When recognized for the first time, a middle green, blue, or purple, is accepted by most persons as well within their color habit, but middle red and middle yellow cause somewhat of a shock. “That isn’t red,” they say, “it’s terra cotta.” “Yellow?” “Oh, no, that’s—well, it’s a very peculiar shade.” Yet these are as surely the middle degrees of red and yellow as are the more familiar degrees of green, blue, and purple. This becomes evident as soon as one accepts physical tests of color in place of personal whim. It also opens the mind to a generally ignored fact, that middle reds and yellows, instead of the screaming red and yellow first given a child, are constantly found in examples of rich and beautiful color, such as Persian rugs, Japanese prints, and the masterpieces of painting. 10. See Color Tree in paragraph 14. 11. Unaware that the spherical arrangement had been used years before, I devised a double tetrahedron to classify colors, while a student of painting in 1879. It now appears that the sphere was common property with psychologists, having been described by Runge in 1810. Earlier still, Lambert had suggested a pyramidal form. Both are based on the erroneous assumption that red, yellow, and blue are primary sensations, and also fail to place these hues in a just scale of luminosity. My twirling color solid and its completer development in the present model have always made prominent the artistic feeling for color value. It differs in this and in other ways from previous systems, and is fortunate in possessing new apparatus to measure the degree of hue, value, and chroma. 12. See Plate I. 13. See Course of Study, Part II. 14. See Chapter VI. 15. See Part II., A Color System and Course of Study. 16. See Color Study assigned to each grade, in Part II. 30 31 32 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II. PLATE I. THE COLOR SPHERE, WITH MEASURED SCALES OF HUE, VALUE, AND CHROMA. The teacher of elementary grades introduces these scales of tempered color as fast as the child’s interest is awakened to their need by the exercises shown in Plates II. and III. Thus the Hue scale is learned before the end of the second year, the Value scale during the next two years, and the Chroma scale in the fifth year. By the time a child is ten years old these definite color scales have become part of his mental furnishing, so that he can name, write, and memorize any color group. 1. The Color Sphere in Skeleton. This diagram shows the middle colors on the equator, with strong red, yellow, green, blue, and purple, each at its proper level in the value scale, and projecting in accordance with its scale of chroma. See the complete description of these scales in Chapter II. 2. The Color Score. Fifteen typical steps taken from the color sphere are here spread out in a flat field. The Five Middle Colors form the centre level, with the same hues in a lighter value above and in a darker value below. Chapter VI. describes the making of this Score, and its use in analyzing colors and preserving a written record of their groups. 3. The Value Scale and Chroma Scale. Each of the five color maxima is thus shown at its proper level in the scale of light, and graded by uniform steps from its strongest chroma inward to neutrality at the axis of the sphere. Pigment inequalities here become very apparent. PLATE I. / Copyright 1907 by A. H. Munsell. FOR PLATES II. & III., SEE APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV., CHILDREN’S COLOR STUDIES. CHAPTER III. COLOR MIXTURE AND BALANCE. 33 34 see text see text All colors grasped in the hand. (54) Let us recall the names and order of colors given in the last chapter, with their assemblage in a sphere by the three qualities of hue, value, and chroma. It will aid the memory to call the thumb of the left hand red, the forefinger yellow, the middle finger green, the ring finger blue, and the little finger purple (Fig. 6). When the finger tips are in a circle, they represent a circuit of hues, which has neither beginning nor end, for we can start with any finger and trace a sequence forward or backward. Now close the tips together for white, and imagine that the five strong hues have slipped down to the knuckles, where they stand for the equator of the color Sphere. Still lower down at the wrist is black. (55) The hand thus becomes a color holder, with white at the finger tips, black at the wrist, strong colors around the outside, and weaker colors within the hollow. Each finger is a scale of its own color, with white above and black below, while the graying of all the hues is traced by imaginary lines which meet in the middle of the hand. Thus a child’s hand may be his substitute for the color sphere, and also make him realize that it is filled with grayer degrees of the outside colors, all of which melt into gray in the centre. Neighborly and opposite hues; and their mixture. (56) Let this circle (Fig. 7) stand for the equator of the color sphere with the five principal hues (written by their initials R, Y, G, B, and P) spaced evenly about it. Some colors are neighbors, as red and yellow, while others are opposites. As soon as a child experiments with paints, he will notice the different results obtained by mixing them. First, the neighbors, that is, any pair which lie next one another, as red and yellow, will unite to make a hue which retains a suggestion of both. It is intermediate between red and yellow, and we call it yellow-red. 17 (57) Green and yellow unite to form green-yellow, blue and green make blue-green, and so on with each succeeding pair. These intermediates are to be written by their initials, and inserted in their proper place between the principal hues. It is as if an orange (paragraph 9) were split into ten sectors instead of five, with red, yellow, green, blue, and purple as alternate sectors, while half of each adjoining color pair were united to form the sector between them. The original order of five hues is in no wise disturbed, but linked together by five intermediate steps. (58) Here is a table of the intermediates made by mixing each pair:— Red and yellow unite to form yellow-red (YR), popularly called orange. 17 Yellow and green unite to form green-yellow (GY), popularly called grass green. Green and blue unite to form blue-green (BG), popularly called peacock blue. Blue and purple unite to form purple-blue (PB), popularly called violet. Purple and red unite to form red-purple (RP), popularly called plum. Using the left hand again to hold colors, the principal hues remain unchanged on the knuckles, but in the hollows between them are placed intermediate hues, so that the circle now reads: red, yellow-red, yellow, green-yellow, green, blue-green, blue, purple-blue, purple, and red-purple, back to the red with which we started. This circuit is easily memorized, so that the child may begin with any color point, and repeat the series clock wise (that is, from left to right) or in reverse order. (59) Each principal hue has thus made two close neighbors by mixing with the nearest principal hue on either hand. The neighbors of red are a yellow-red on one side and a purple-red on the other. The neighbors of green are a green-yellow on one hand and a blue-green on the other. It is evident that a still closer neighbor could be made by again mixing each consecutive pair in this circle of ten hues; and, if the process were continued long enough, the color steps would become so fine that the eye could see only a circuit of hues melting imperceptibly one into another. (60) But it is better for the child to gain a fixed idea of red, yellow, green, blue, and purple, with their intermediates, before attempting to mix pigments, and these ten steps are sufficient for primary education. (61) Next comes the question of opposites in this circle. A line drawn from red, through the centre, finds its opposite, blue-green. 18 If these colors are mixed, they unite to form gray. Indeed, the centre of the circle stands for a middle gray, not only because it is the centre of the neutral axis between black and white, but also because any pair of opposites will unite to form gray. (62) This is a table of five mixtures which make neutral gray: Opposites Red & Yellow Green Blue Purple Blue-green Purple-blue Red-purple Yellow-red Green-yellow Each pair of which unites in neutral gray. (63) But if, instead of mixing these opposite hues, we place them side by side, the eye is so stimulated by their difference that each seems to gain in strength; i.e., each enhances the other when separate, but destroys the other w...