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WonderColour measurement fact

The American painter Albert Munsell described every colour with three measures: its hue, such as red or blue; its value, how light or dark it is; and its chroma, how intense it is. His system, published in 1905, is still used to match colours.

Munsell color system

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The story behind the card

Munsell was a painter who taught art at the Massachusetts Normal Art School in Boston. He found everyday colour names too vague to teach with and wanted a rational system based on numbers instead. He began work in 1898 and published it as A Color Notation in 1905. His key step was to space each scale so that equal steps in the numbers look like equal differences to the human eye; measurements by the Optical Society of America in the 1940s later refined the charts. In the 1930s the US Department of Agriculture adopted the system for describing soil, and soil scientists still carry Munsell charts in the field. Dentists use it to match the colour of tooth restorations, and breweries to match the colour of beer.

Türkçe oku
Amerikalı ressam Albert Munsell her rengi üç ölçüyle tanımladı: tonu (kırmızı ya da mavi gibi), değeri (ne kadar açık ya da koyu olduğu) ve kroması (ne kadar canlı olduğu). 1905'te yayımladığı bu sistem, renkleri eşleştirmek için bugün de kullanılıyor.

Munsell, Boston'daki Massachusetts Normal Sanat Okulu'nda resim dersi veren bir ressamdı. Gündelik renk adlarını ders anlatmak için fazla belirsiz buluyor, bunların yerine sayılara dayanan, mantıklı bir sistem istiyordu. Çalışmaya 1898'de başladı ve sistemi 1905'te A Color Notation (Renk Gösterimi) adlı kitabında yayımladı. Asıl yeniliği, ölçeklerdeki her adımın göze de eşit bir fark olarak görünmesini sağlamaktı. 1940'larda Amerika Optik Derneği'nin yaptığı ölçümler renk çizelgelerini daha da iyileştirdi. ABD Tarım Bakanlığı 1930'larda sistemi toprak rengini tanımlamak için benimsedi; toprak bilimciler arazide bugün de Munsell çizelgeleriyle çalışıyor. Diş hekimleri dolgu ve protezlerin rengini, bira üreticileri de biranın rengini tutturmak için bu sistemden yararlanıyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Munsell color system
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