Analysis of Color Materials.
A valuable and interesting phase of color investigation and color training may be found in the analysis and naming of the natural colors found in flowers, minerals and the plumage of birds. The necessity for a definite and adequate nomenclature which naturalists experience in this department of education has been emphasized by the publication within a few years of a book entitled "A Nomenclature of Colors for Naturalists, and a Compendium of useful knowledge for Ornithologists."
This book has been prepared with great care by Robert Ridgway of the United States National Museum, and contains a large number of hand-painted plates showing nearly two hundred colors which represent selections from three hundred and fifty names of colors which are given in English, Latin, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Norwegian or Danish. [D]
The fact that a book involving so much technical knowledge and the expenditure of so much time and money was deemed justifiable is an evidence of the great need for some definite nomenclature.
In the introduction the author says: "Undoubtedly one of the chief desiderata of naturalists, both professional and amateur, is a means of identifying the various shades of colors named in descriptions, and of being able to determine exactly what name to apply to a particular tint which it is desired to designate in an original description. No modern work of this character it appears, is extant,—the latest publication of its kind which the author has been able to consult being Syme's edition of 'Werner's Nomenclature of Colors,' published in Edinburgh in 1821. It is found, however, that in Syme's 'nomenclature' that the colors have become so modified by time, that in very few cases do they correspond with the tints they were intended to represent."
The following are the opening sentences of the preface: "The want of a nomenclature of colors adapted particularly to the use of naturalists has ever been more or less an obstacle to the study of Nature; and although there have been many works published on the subject of color, they either pertain exclusively to the purely scientific or technical aspects of the case or to the manufacturing industries, or are otherwise unsuited to the special purposes of the zoologist, the botanist and the mineralogist."
In the same book the Chapter on Principles of Color opens with the following sentences: "The popular nomenclature of colors has of late years, especially since the introduction of aniline dyes and pigments, become involved in almost chaotic confusion through the coinage of a multitude of new names, many of them synonymous, and still more of them vague or variable in their meaning. These new names are far too numerous to be of any practical utility, even were each one identifiable with a particular fixed tint. Many of them are invented at the caprice of the dyer or manufacturer of fabrics, and are as capricious in their meaning as in their origin; among them being such fanciful names as 'Zulu,' 'Crushed Strawberry,' 'Baby Blue,' 'Woodbine-berry,' 'Night Green,' etc., besides such nonsensical names as 'Ashes of Roses' and 'Elephant's Breath.'"
These extracts from this valuable and interesting book by an author of large experience are quoted here to emphasize the practical necessity for more definite color education based on analysis and nomenclature.
With the color wheel or color top, the colors of flowers and leaves as well as all other objects in nature and art may be analyzed and named, and the names definitely recorded in the terms of a nomenclature based on permanent standards.
The following list of flowers and leaves of plants and trees with their analyses in terms of our nomenclature is taken from a recently published paper entitled "On the Color Description of Flowers," by Prof. J. H. Pillsbury, to whom the writer is indebted for some of the earliest suggestions regarding the practical application of the scientific facts of color to color teaching, and also for valuable scientific work which he has done including the exact location of the six color standards in the solar spectrum by their wave lengths:—
"With these standards to work from, I undertook to determine the color analysis of certain of our common flowers. The following results, will, I think, be interesting to botanists. The numbers given indicate per cent. of color required to produce the hue of the flower:—
| Common forsythia, | F. viridissima: | Pure spectrum yellow. | |||
| Fringed polygala, | P. paucifolia: | R. 48, | V. 52. | ||
| Wistaria, | W. frutescens, wings: | R. 11, | V. 89. | ||
| Wistaria, | W. frutescens, standard: | R. 9, | V. 79, | W. 12. | |
| Flowering quince, | Cydonia japonica: | R. 95, | V. 2, | W. 3. | |
| Wild cranesbill, | Geranium maculatum: | R. 28, | V. 66, | W. 6. | |
The variations of color in the early summer foliage is also interesting. The following analyses are for the upper side of fresh and well developed healthy leaves. It is not impossible that a little attention to these variations in the color of foliage on the part of artists would save us the annoyance of some of the abominable green which we so often see in the pictures of artists of good reputation:—
| White oak: | Y. 7. 5, | G. 11 .5, | N. 81. | ||
| Apple: | Y. 5, | G. 13, | W. 2, | N. 80. | |
| Copper beech: | R. 17, | V. 2, | N. 81. | ||
| Hemlock: | Y. 2, | G. 9, | N. 89. | ||
| White pine: | Y. 2. 5, | G. 11, | N. 86. 5. | ||
| White birch: | Y. 5. 5, | G. 11. 5, | W. 1, | N. 82. | |
| Hornbeam: | Y. 5. 5, | G. 12. 5, | N. 82. | ||
| Shagbark hickory: | Y.4.5, | G.9.5, | N.86. |
These analyses were made in a moderately strong diffused light with Maxwell disks of the standard hues referred to above."
These are but a few of the numerous flowers the colors of which may be perfectly imitated and consequently analyzed and named with the color wheel or the top. In fact for individual work in natural history the top is more convenient than the wheel and sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes, while it is a very fascinating occupation for child or adult.
In the use of disks for analyzing colors it must be remembered that every material color is some quality of some color in the spectrum circuit, and therefore may be matched with not more than two standard disks, either alone or with white or black or both. If more than two color disks, besides white and black, are used they will neutralize each other more or less, and a neutral gray or a gray and some spectrum color will be the result. For example, if yellow and blue in nearly equal parts are introduced in connection with red and orange, the yellow and blue being nearly complimentary to each other will produce practically a neutral gray, and the result will be the same as if only red, orange, white and black were used.
Fig. 64.
Owing to the recent advances in the art of dyeing there are some textile goods which are too intense in color to be exactly imitated by the disk standards, but this fact need not prevent a practical analysis of such colors, because by very slightly reducing with white the color to be examined the same color is retained, the modification making it, of course, somewhat lighter. Fig. 64, showing a small circle representing a disk of the material mounted on thick paper, illustrates this statement. Suppose we have a piece of rich brown cloth, so intense in color that when red, orange and black are combined in the proportions of R. 22, O. 16, N. 62, the material is still a little richer in color than can be made with the disks of the color wheel. If we introduce a small amount of white into the brown of the material we may hope to match it with the disks and this may be done by cutting a bit of fairly heavy white paper in the form shown in the diagram and loosening the nut of the color wheel slightly, after which we insert the point of the triangle under the nut so that when tightened the white paper may be held in front of the brown disk, as in the illustration. Trim the outer end even with the disk and then rotate. If the effect of the white is too great trim off a little from the side of the white paper to make it narrower, until a perfect match is secured.
The small disk in rotation is then of the same color but not quite so intense as before, or in other words, is a very deep tint of the color. In this way the Nomenclature can be recorded as follows: Brown 95, W. 5, = R. 22, O. 16, N. 62.
This result does not often occur, but the subject is noticed here in detail that no one may be in doubt when such cases do come to light, as they will sooner or later.
The aniline colors give some purples which are much more brilliant than either the violet or red which otherwise should by combination produce them, so that with these standards they cannot be made, but must be reduced with white, or possibly with white and black.
If a color wheel is not available many of these experiments may be tried on the color top, but not as satisfactorily, because of the accuracy necessary in cutting so small a disk in a woven material. In using the top for analysis of all ordinary colors, the best plan is lay the material on a table or other level surface and spin the top on it. If quite an accurate test is desired the cardboard disk of the top may be trimmed down to the size of the largest paper disk, so that there will be no intervening ring of light color to separate the color of the rotating disks from the material on which it is spun.
Practical applications of the color top are already being made, as for example, in the selection of house furnishings. For this purpose disks of the top are combined at home to produce the desired colors to match the wood finishings and papers or draperies in a partially completed room, the top being used as a guide in preliminary selections of additional materials from the stores.
If a number of colors are required it is convenient to use several combinations of disks, each set being slightly gummed together. In this way standards for various colors with a top spindle for rotation in the salesroom may be carried in a very small space.