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A Color Notation
von: A. H. Munsell
e-artnow, 2020
ISBN: 4064066060404 , 76 Seiten
Format: ePUB
Kopierschutz: Wasserzeichen
Preis: 1,99 EUR
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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.
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.
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.
FOR PLATES II. & III.,
SEE APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IV.,
CHILDREN’S COLOR STUDIES.
Chapter III.
COLOR MIXTURE AND BALANCE.
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 when mixed. This is a very interesting point to be more fully illustrated by the help of a color wheel in Chapter V., paragraph 106. What we need to remember is...