color, colour (kulor)

[The second spelling is still prevalent in England; early mod. E. col our, color, coloure, collour, D. kleur = Dan. kulör = Sw. kulör ) = Pr. Sp. Pg. color (Pg. also contr. cor) = It. colore, color OL. colos (cf. arbor1 ), color, tint, orig. a covering, from the root of celare, celare, cover, hide, oc cult are, hide: see conceal and occult. For the transfer of sense, cf. Gr. χροιά, χρόα, surface, skin, color.] 1. Objectively, that that quality qua of a thing or appearance which is perceived by the eye alone, independently of the form of the thing; subjectively, a sensation, or the cla of sensations, peculiar to the organ of vision, and arising from stimulation of the optic nerve. The proper stimulus to the sensation of color is light radiated from a luminous body or reflected from the surface of a non-luminous body; but it can be induced by other means, as by an electric shock. When a ray of white light is analyzed, as by a prism, into parts each of a definite wave length, the parts show the colors red, orange, yellow, and spectrum, each color shading gradually into the next. (See light and spectrum.) These colors have been termed primary or simple, though in fact they do not excite simple color-sensations. If the colors of the spectrum are recombined, white light reappears. Similarly, if two colors which lie near together in the spectrum, both on the same side of light of wave-length 0.524 micron, are mixed (for example, if two rays of colored light are upon the same spot so as to be reflected from it together), the intermediate colors are nearly produced. If, however, the colors, being on different sides of that point, are taken further and further apart in the spectrum, the mixture becomes gradually whiter (le saturated) until two colors are found which produce pure white light. If the colors are still further removed, a purple results. Those pairs of colors which when mixed produce white or gray light are called complementary color ors; such are red and green-blue, orange and blue, yellow and indigo-blue, green-yellow and violet. The sensations vary with the intensity of the light: thus, orange when highly illuminated looks more yellow than when darker, and the main effect of increasing the illumination of a color is to add a yellow color-sensation, called the color of brightne . If, instead of mixing spectral colors, col ored pigments are mixed, very different results are obtained thus, while spectral blue and yellow produce white, blue and yellow pigments produce green. This is the yellow and red light, while the yellow pigment absorbs the blue and violet light, so that only the green remains to be reflected. Colors vary in chroma, or freedom from admixture of white light; in brightne or luminosity; and in hue, which roughly corresponds to the mean wavelength of the light emitted. The numbers which measure these quantities, as well as any other system of three numbers for defining colors, are called constants of color. Pure white light and darkne are not ordinarily regarded as colors; but white and black objects are commonly spoken the fact that the pigment absorbs nearly all of as colored, although the former reflect and the latter absorb all the rays of light without separating them into colors properly so called. 2. In painting: (a) The general effect of all the hues entering into the composition of a picture. (b) An effect of brilliancy combined with harmony: said either of a work in different colors or of a work in monochrome, or of an engraving: as, the picture has no color; the engraving is full of color. Though there is no colour , strictly speaking, in an engraving consisting merely of black and white lines, yet the term is often...applied to an engraving which is supposed, from the varied character of its lines and the contrast of light and shade, to convey the idea of varied local colour as seen in a painting. Chatto, Wood Engraving, p. 213. 3. Any distinguishing hue, or the condition of having a distinguishing hue - that is, a hue different from that which prevails among objects of the kind concerned, whether the prevailing hue be positive, as green, or neutral or negative, as white or black; hence, ( a ) in a picture or view, or in a fabric or other material dyed or painted, any hue, especially a pure tint (often implying a vivid one), other than black and white; ( b ) in human beings, from the standpoint of the white races, a hue or complexion other than white, and especially black; (c) in bot., any hue except green. See colored, 2.-4. The natural hue of the face; a red or reddish tint; flush; blush; complexion in general. But aye she drank the cauld water, To keep her colour fine. Fair Annie (Child's Ballads, III. 201). Look, whether he has not turned his colour , and has tears in his eyes. Shak ., Hamlet, ii. 2. My colour came and went several times with indignation. Swift , Gulliver's Travels, ii. 3. 5. That which is used for coloring; a pigment; paint. The statue is but newly fixed, the colour's Not dry. Shak ., W. T., v. 3. By mixing his colours with white, the artist obtains his tints. By mixing colours with colours , he produces compound colours , or hues; and by mixing colours or tints with black, he gets shades. Salter's Field's Chromatography , p. 27. 6. pl. (a) A flag, ensign, or standard, such as is borne in a military body, or by a ship: so called from being usually marked by a particular combination of colors: sometimes used as a singular noun. See flag2. IMG:content-0823.png:[blocks in formation] 8. Kind; sort; variety; character; description. Boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour . Shak., As you Like it, iii. 2. 10. That which serves to hide the real char- acter of something and give a false appearance; mere appearance; false show; pretense; guise. Why hunt I then for colour or excuse? Shak., Lucrece, 1. 267. Under the colour of commending him, I have acce my own love to prefer. Shak., T. G. of V., iv. 2. My father instantly clapped his hand on my uncle Toby's mouth, under colour of whispering in his ear. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, iv. 29. Sir T. More , Cumfort against Tribulation (1573), fol. 50. I have the wars for my colour , and my pension shall Shak., 2 Hen. IV., i. 2. What has Aëcius done, to be destroy'd? At least, I would have a colour . Did I attempt her with a thread-bare name, Un-napt with meritorious actions, She might with colour disallow my suit. IMG:content-0824.png:[blocks in formation] an apparent but not a sufficient right, the object being to lay a foundation for matter in avoidance of it. - Color of office, the semblance of right by which a sheriff or other officer a umes to do that which the law does not really authorize. It implies an illegal act. Color of title, semblance or appearance of title, irrespective of its va- lidity. According to the stricter authorities, to give color of title the instrument should be good in form, identify the property, profe to convey it, and be duly executed; and in such case po e ion under it may ripen into per- fect title, irrespective of the void or voidable character of the instrument. - Confluent colors. See confluent . - Distemper colors, colors ground in water to a creamy consistency, to which is added a sizing of glue or white of egg to make them adhere to the surface to which they are applied. They are generally used for decorating plastered walls or ceilings. Also called fresco colors. - Dry color, any dry pigment suitable for grinding in a medium to be used in painting. - Ecclesiastical colors, liturgical colors, colors for vestments, and for hangings William of Palerne (E. E. T. S.), L. 881. of the altar, sanctuary, pulpit, etc., varying according to the festival, the season, or the kind of office. According To change color, to turn red or pale: said of a person. Canst thou quake and change thy colour ? to the Roman sequence of colors, white, as the color of purity and joy, is used on the festivals of Christ, the Vir- gin, angels, and saints not martyrs, and at marriages; red, as the color of blood, on the feasts of the Holy Cro and of martyrs, and also at Whit sun tide with reference to the tongues of fire (Acts ii. 3); violet or purple, as the peniten- tial color, in Advent, Septuagesima, etc., Lent, and on vi- gils, etc.; green, the prevailing color of natural vegetation, and symbolic of hope, on days and during seasons not otherwise distinguished, especially from Trinity to Advent Sunday, both exclusive; black, on Good Friday, at funerals, and at services for the departed. These colors are widely used in Anglican churches also, though le frequently for vestments than for hangings. Some Anglican churches have revived the old English or Sarum colors, namely, red as the ordinary Sunday color, as a penitential color on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Easter Even, and Whit- sun Even, and also on the same days as in the Roman use; white, throughout Easter tide; yellow, for feasts of con- fe ors; blue, indifferently with green; and brown or gray with violet, for penitential seasons. In the Greek Church vestments, etc., of various colors are used, but there is no fixed or habitual sequence as in the West, ex- cept that red is preferred for Lent.- Fast colors, those colors which do not wash out or fade easily from exposure The name of fast colours is given to those which resist the action of light, air, water, alcohol, dilute acids and alkalis, and of weak hypochlorites and soap solution. Calvert, Dyeing and Calico-printing, p. 19. Fresco colors. Same as distemper colors (which see, above). Fundamental color, a color which, under the illumination of average diffused daylight, produces as nearly as po ible a fundamental color-sensation. Also called primary color. See color-sensation. - General col- or, in painting , the effect in combination of all the hues or tones appearing in a picture. - Gradation of color, the continuous variation of the color-sensations excited by the different parts of a surface. - Graining-colors, colors ground in linseed-oil with the addition of a small amount of wax to prevent their spreading when manipulated with a graining-comb to imitate the graining of various woods. -Ground color. See ground , a.-High color. (a) A hue which excites intensely chromatic color-sensations. (b) Redne of the complexion. - Intense color, a high color. Japan colors, colors ground in a medium called japan. They are used by coach and car-painters, and are often called coach-colors. They are thinned with turpentine before using, and dry dead or flat, that is, without any glo . They are afterward varnished, which brings out the brilliancy of color.-Law of color, the principle that every color of the spectrum can be matched by a mixture of some two out of three colors, namely, the scarlet vermil- ion of the spectrum at wave-length 0.639 (Angström), the pure blue of the spectrum at wave-length 0.464, and a green a little more intense than the pure green of the spec- trum at wave-length 0.524, except only that the green of the spectrum contains a little of both red and blue.- Liturgical colors. See ecclesiastical colors , above. - Local color. (a) In painting , the hue, or combination of hues, special to any object or part. (b) A general system of light and shadow upon which the modeling and tint- ing of details is executed; chiaroscuro. Local colour in all the black and white arts means the translation of all hues into their relative degrees of gray. Hamerton, Graphic Arts, p. 424. [Cordilleran mining region.] -14. In phren., one of the perceptive faculties, its supposed function being that of giving the power of per- ceiving colors or of distinguishing their shades. -15. In her . See tincture .-16. Animation; vividne . Ho couthe kyndliche with colour discriue, Yf alle the worlde were whit other swanwhit alle thynges? Piers Plowman (C), xxi. 214. 17. In music: (a) The various rhythmic, me- lodic, or harmonic characteristics in a compos i- tion which constitute its individuality, as varia- tions in rhythm, melodic decorations or figures, intentional discords, etc. The use of the term is traceable to the early use of colored lines to a ist in the interpretation of the neumæ, and also of colored notes and other signs in the mensural-music. (b) The timbre or quality of a musical tone. See timbre . - Absorp- tion of color. See absorption. - Accidental colors, One [tower] inserted in the body of the wall [of Ches- ter] and the other connected with it by a short, crumbling ridge of masonry, they contribute to a positive jumble of local color . Hence-(d) Analogous characteristics in a literary compo- sition. Low color, a color of little chromatic intensity. Mixture of colors, a color which throws upon the ret- ina a sum of lights similar in quantity, and proportionate in intensity, to the lights which would be projected by the constituent colors, the sum of the proportions being unity. Thus, if A, B, and C are the lights thrown upon the retina by three colors, and another color projects a light which is the sum of A, B, and C, then the latter is said to be a mixture of A, B, and C.-Moist color. See water - color , below. - Neutral color, a color which matches a mixture of white and black. Oil-color, a pigment of any kind ground in linseed or poppy-oil. The former oil is gener- ally used for house-paints, the latter for artists' colors.- Persons of color, specifically, persons having any pro- portion, however small, of African blood. Marriages between white men and women of colour are M'Culloch , Geog. Dict., Brazil. accidents as affect neutral colors. - Primary colors. (a) The seven colors into which Newton arbitrarily divided the spectrum. See def. 1, above. (b) The colors red, yel- low, and blue, from the mixture of which it was errone- ously supposed (from the facts of the mechanical mixture of pigments) all other colors could be produced. (c) The red, green, and violet light of the spectrum, from the Most [writings] display the individual peculiarities of Whipple, E , and Rev., I. 233. Coloring matter, any element from which the color of natural objects is derived, or any substance employed in the arts for the purpose of imparting color. - Coloring tool, in seal - engraving , a tool used for cutting color-lines upon the field of work. It has two cutting edges; one, placed in a line already cut, serves as a gage to fix the distance of the next line. To color (a stranger's) goodst, to allow him to enter goods at the custom-house in one's name, to avoid the alien's duty: said of a freeman. colorable