A COLOR NOTATION

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.

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.