I love stuff like this. The article mentions Werner’s Nomenclature of Colour which is a marvel. There is a wonderful Thames and Hudson book, Nature’s Palette, which includes Werner’s Nomenclature and expands on it by discussing how the nomenclature was produced, has illustrations of the reference plants and animals Werner used, etc.
It makes for a great gift for an aspiring artist interested in natural themes, I think. Particularly when paired with Taschen’s The Art and Science of Ernst Haeckel which is a similarly mesmerising historical reference:
Tangent: always fun to read these old books that still have a long s and having to remind myself not to misread it as an f all the time. It gets so silly, like the authors have a bad lisp (or "bad lifp", I gueff).
(also funny that our forward slash is a descendant of it, meaning it's a "cousin" to the integral symbol)
The article implies there are formulations included, mix up a new batch and compare? I know nothing about watercolor pigments, but the saturation remaining after so many years impressed me.
On the subject of mixing up a new batch, it is an easy thing to say, but often following old recipes can be tricky. What was once common and implied is no longer so. The missing context makes reproduction near impossible.
I'm impressed that the colours are still so vibrant, based on the photos from the books. Some extra context around restoration of of the book would help.
Well, old paintings from that period are usually fine too, right? Pigments were usually made from mineral sources that last very well. It's usually the varnish on top that changes color over time.
A book's illustrations don't have that problem, and the pages aren't exposed to the air or sun as much either, if kept on a shelf in a dry place most of the time.
Does make me wonder how expensive the blue pages were to make though:
It's a standard way to ensure that different printers print the same colour for branding purposes (unless of course, one is large enough to formulate and dictate one's own colour à la Coca-Cola and their red).
And of course, we all owe a great debt to Willis Carrier whose efforts to regularize temperature and humidity for the sake of consistent and accurate printing colour reproduction resulted in the invention of air conditioning.
https://amzn.eu/d/0injz69N
It makes for a great gift for an aspiring artist interested in natural themes, I think. Particularly when paired with Taschen’s The Art and Science of Ernst Haeckel which is a similarly mesmerising historical reference:
https://amzn.eu/d/0hZ4IE2i
(also funny that our forward slash is a descendant of it, meaning it's a "cousin" to the integral symbol)
On the subject of mixing up a new batch, it is an easy thing to say, but often following old recipes can be tricky. What was once common and implied is no longer so. The missing context makes reproduction near impossible.
A book's illustrations don't have that problem, and the pages aren't exposed to the air or sun as much either, if kept on a shelf in a dry place most of the time.
Does make me wonder how expensive the blue pages were to make though:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarine
It turns out after a second of searching it's not really about that. What it is about I do not know how it helps the phone.
https://www.pantone.com/na/en-us/color-systems/pantone-color...
c.f.,
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1928117.Four_Colors_One_...
(or some similar text on 4-color process)
And of course, we all owe a great debt to Willis Carrier whose efforts to regularize temperature and humidity for the sake of consistent and accurate printing colour reproduction resulted in the invention of air conditioning.