Page:Color standards and color nomenclature (Ridgway, 1912).djvu/27

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Sources of Color Names.
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pared it has been found that no two are exactly alike, the difference often being very great. For example: Of five samples of " Vandyke brown" only two are approximately similar, each of the other three being widely different, not only from one another but from the other two, one being a blackish brown, another reddish brown, the third a yellowish orange-brown. Of eleven samples of "olive" no two are closely similar, the color ranging from a shade of dull (grayish) blue-green to orange-brown, dark brownish gray, and light yellowish olive; and the same or nearly the same degree of variation is seen in absolutely every color examined, showing very clearly the utter worthlessness of color names unless fixed or standardized.

In order to obtain as many color names as possible for standardization it has been necessary to draw from all available sources. Several thousand samples of named colors have therefore been collected, and for convenience of reference and comparison gummed to card catalogue cards, with the name, source, and other data thereon. These include the colors from many standard works, among them Werner's "Nomenclature of Colours" (Syme's edition, 1821), Hay's "Nomenclature of Colours" (1846), Ridgway's "Nomenclature of Colors" (1886), Saccardo's "Chromataxia" (1891), Mathews' "Chart of Correct Colors of Flowers" (American Florist, 1891), Willson and Calkins' "Familiar Colors," Oberthur and Dauthenay's "Repertoire des Couleurs" (1905), Leidel's "Hints on Tints" (1893), "Lefevre's Matieres Colorantes Artificiales" (1896), the Standard Dictionary chart of "typical colors," the educational colored papers of Milton Bradley and Prang, and many others; and besides these practically all of the artists' oil, water, and dry colors, manufactured by Windsor and Newton, F. Schoenfeld and Co., Charles Roberson and Co.,