124. We think we know purple until we discover that the purple of royalty, the ermine and purple, the purple of the cardinals’ robes, frequently approximated what we now call carmine. Royal purple and Venetian blue are mere trade terms. Practical men in the purchase of things decorative soon discover that color terms convey only individual impressions and no distinctive qualities that may be relied upon; so that any effort to fix the color value by periods would be futile. We may assume that in the age of oak, mahogany, white and gold or walnut furniture, the fabric and wall colors harmonized with the wood colors, and to that degree we may fix the period character of color. The moment that the tone of the woodwork or the light conditions varied, color character varied also.
125. We must also bear well in mind that colors which have come down to us as examples of ancient times have been subjected to the changing influences of centuries, and have faded and altered. The colors on the walls of the historic rooms of European palaces have greatly altered. The flat reds and the deadish blues of the Pompeiian frescoes have been altered by chemical action during the 1,850 years’ burial under the lava of Vesuvius. We are not justified in judging of the colors of A.D. 79 by the restoration-examples in 1900. Hence the mere expressions Pompeiian red, Pompeiian blue, can convey no definite, positive meaning.
Fig. 1.
COLOR VOCABULARY
126. In music, a tone which is formed by a certain number of vibrations per second is the same the world over, and each and every tone has a name; but in color no such standards exist. People have attempted to formulate a system by denominating the primary colors, red, yellow and blue, respectively as R, Y and B, and the combinations of these colors as combinations of letters. For example, red, with varying degrees of yellow added, is denominated by the letters R R O, or R O R, or O O R. This system tends to confusion, and is inadequate to express tints and shades. Various other systems have been devised. Color charts have been made, and in each system arbitrary names have been assigned, so that each color may be known by one of several names. The difficulty of insuring accuracy under these circumstances becomes very evident.
127. In discussing color combinations, one is usually confused because the subject is not a tangible expression that can be grasped like the sound of a note in music. With color charts, every maker has a standard of his own and the term “red” may mean anything within a wide range; a yellow-red or a blue-red, the yellow-red perhaps being cherry, the blue-red perhaps being carmine. An appreciation of the Harmonies of Contrast or Harmonies of Analogy or Relationship is accompanied by great confusion because of this lack of standardization.
128. There is only one true standard of color, and that is the standard as shown in the prism, and expressed by the spectrum. It is within the province of any man to determine the proper relationship of color if he starts with the chart we here present. We fix definitely the three primary and the three secondary colors, the primaries, red, yellow and blue, being those indicated by the heavy black lines; the secondaries, orange, green and violet, being indicated by the broad stipple lines.