A Color Notation Part 7

This system provides measured scales, established by special instruments, and is able to select the middle points of red, yellow, green, blue, and purple as a basis for comparing and relating all colors. These five middle colors form a Chromatic Tuning Fork. (See page 70.) It is far better that children should first become familiar with these tuned color intervals which are harmonious in themselves rather than begin by blundering among unrelated degrees of harsh and violent color. Who would think of teaching the musical scale with a piano out of tune?

_The Tuning of Color cannot be left to Personal Whim._ The wide discrepancies of red, yellow, and blue, which have been falsely taught as primary colors, can no more be tuned by a child than the musical novice can tune his instrument. Each of these hues has three variable factors (see page 14, paragraph 14), and scientific tests are necessary to measure and relate their uneven degrees of Hue, Value, and Chroma.

Visual estimates of color, without the help of any standard for comparison, are continually distorted by doubt, guess-work, and the fatigue of the eye. Hardly two persons can agree in the intelligible description of color. Not only do individuals differ, but the same eye will vary in its estimates from day to day. A frequent a.s.sumption that all strong pigments are equal in chroma, is far from the truth, and involves beginners in many mishaps. Thus the strongest blue-green, chromium sesquioxide, is but half the chroma of its red complement, the sulphuret of mercury. Yet ignorance is constantly leading to their unbalanced use. Indeed, some are still unaware that they are the complements of each other.[25]

[Footnote 25: See Appendix to Chapter III.]

It is evident that the fundamental scales of Hue, Value, and Chroma must be established by scientific measures, not by personal bias. This system is unique in the possession of such scales, made possible by the devising of special instruments for the measurement of color, and can therefore be trusted as a permanent basis for training the color sense.

The examples in Plates II. and III. show how successfully the tuned crayons, cards, and water colors of this system lead a child to fine appreciations of color harmony.

PLATE II.

COLOR STUDIES WITH TUNED CRAYONS IN THE LOWER GRADES.

Children have made every example on this plate, with no other material than the five crayons of middle hue, tempered with gray and black.

A Color Sphere is always kept in the room for reference, and five color b.a.l.l.s to match the five middle hues are placed in the hands of the youngest pupils. Starting with these middle points in the scales of Value and Chroma, they learn to estimate rightly all lighter and darker values, all weaker and stronger chromas, and gradually build up a disciplined judgment of color.

Each study can be made the basis of many variations by a simple change of one color element, as suggested in the text.

1. b.u.t.terfly. Yellow and black crayon. Vary by using any single crayon with black.

2. Dish. Red crayon, blue and green crayons for back and foreground.

Vary by using the two opposites of any color chosen for the dish and omitting the two neighboring colors. See No. 4.

3. Hiawatha's canoe. Yellow crayon, with rim and name in green. Vary color of canoe, keeping the rim a neighboring color. See No. 4.

4. Color-circle. Gray crayon for centre, and five crayons s.p.a.ced equidistant. This gives the invariable order, red, yellow, green, blue, purple. _Never use all five in a single design._ Either use a color and its two neighbors or a color and its two opposites. By mingling touches of any two neighbors, the intermediates are made and named yellow-red (orange), green-yellow, blue-green, purple-blue (violet), and red-purple. Abbreviated, the circle reads R, YR, Y, GY, G, BG, B, PB, P, RP.

5. Rosette. Red cross in centre, green leaves: blue field, black outline. Vary as in No. 2.

6. Rosette. Green centre and edge of leaves, purple field and black accents. Vary color of centre, keeping field two colors distant.

7. Plaid. Use any three crayons with black. Vary the trio.

8. Folding screen. Yellow field (lightly applied), green and black edge. Make lighter and darker values of each color, and arrange in scales graded from black to white.

9. Rug. Light red field with solid red centre, border pattern and edges of gray. This is called self-color. Change to each of the crayons.

10. Rug. Light yellow field and solid centre, with purple and black in border design. Vary by change of ground, keeping design two colors distant and darkened with black.

11. Lattice. Yellow with black: alternate green and blue lozenges.

Vary by keeping the lozenges of two neighboring colors, but one color removed from that of the lattice.

For principles involved in these color groups, see Chapter III.

PLATE III.

COLOR STUDIES WITH TUNED WATER COLORS IN THE UPPER GRADES.

Previous work with measured scales, made by the tuned crayons and tested by reference to the color sphere, have so trained the color judgment that children may now be trusted with more flexible material. They have memorized the equable degrees of color on the equator of the sphere, and found how lighter colors may balance darker colors, how small areas of stronger chroma may be balanced by larger ma.s.ses of weaker chroma, and in general gained a disciplined color sense. Definite impressions and clear thinking have taken the place of guess-work and blundering.

Thus, before reaching the secondary school, they are put in possession of the color faculty by a system and notation similar to that which was devised centuries ago for the musical sense. No system, however logical, will produce the artist, but every artist needs some systematic training at the outset, and this simple method by measured scales is believed to be the best yet devised.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 2.

Copyright 1907 by A. H. Munsell]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 3.

Copyright 1907 by A. H. Munsell]

Each example on this plate may be made the basis of many variants, by small changes in the color steps, as suggested in the text, and further elaborated in Chapter VI. Indeed, the studies reproduced on Plates II.

and III. are but a handful among hundreds of pleasing results produced in a single school.[26]

1. Pattern. Purple and green: the two united and thinned with water will give the ground. Vary with any other color pair.

2. Pattern. Figure in middle red, with darker blue-green accent.

Ground of middle yellow, grayed with slight addition of the red and green. Vary with purple in place of blue-green.

3. j.a.panese teapot. Middle red, with background of lighter yellow and foreground of grayed middle yellow.

4. Variant on No. 3. Middle yellow, with slight addition of green.

Foreground the same, with more red, and background of middle gray.

5. Group. Background of yellow-red, lighter vase in yellow-green, and darker vase of green, with slight addition of black. Vary by inversion of the colors in ground and darker vase.

6. Wall decoration. Frieze pattern made of cat-tails and leaves,--the leaves of blue-green with black, tails of yellow-red with black, and ground of the two colors united and thinned with water. Wall of blue-green, slightly grayed by additions of the two colors in the frieze. Dado could be a match of the cat-tails slightly grayer. _See Fig. 23, page 82._

7. Group. Foreground in purple-blue, grayed with black. Vase of purple-red, and background in lighter yellow-red, grayed.

For a.n.a.lysis of the groups and means of recording them, see Chapter III.

[Footnote 26: The Pope School, Somerville, Ma.s.s.]

CHAPTER V.

A PIGMENT COLOR SPHERE.[27]

+How to make a color sphere with pigments.+

(102) The preceding chapters have built up an ideal color solid, in which every sensation of color finds its place and is clearly named by its degree of hue, value, and chroma.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 16.]