Varichon A. Color Charts: A History

Princeton University Press, 2024. — 285 p.A beautifully illustrated history of the many inventive, poetic, and alluring ways in which color swatches have been selected and staged
The need to categorize and communicate color has mobilized practitioners and scholars for centuries. Color Charts describes the many different methods and ingenious devices developed since the fifteenth century by doctors, naturalists, dyers, and painters to catalog fragments of colors. With the advent of industrial society, manufacturers and merchants developed some of the most beautiful and varied tools ever designed to present all the available colors. Thanks to them, society has discovered the abundance of color embodied in a plethora of materials: cuts of fabric, leather, paper, and rubber; slats of wood and linoleum; delicate skeins of silk; careful deposits of paint and pastels; fragments of lipstick; and arrangements of flower petals. These samples shape a visual culture and a chromatic vocabulary and instill a deep desire for color.
Anne Varichon traces the emergence of modern color charts from a set of processes developed over the centuries in various contexts. She presents illuminating examples that bring this remarkable story to life, from ancient writings revealing attention to precise shade to contemporary designers’ color charts, dyers’ notebooks, and Werner’s famous color nomenclature. Varichon argues that color charts have linked generations of artists, artisans, scientists, industrialists, and merchants, and have played an essential and enduring role in the way societies think about color.
Drawing on nearly two hundred documents from public and private collections, almost all of them previously unpublished, this wonderfully illustrated book shows how the color chart, in its many distinct forms and expressions, is a practical tool that has transcended its original purpose to become an educational aid and subject of contemplation worthy of being studied and admired.
About the Author
Anne Varichon is an anthropologist specializing in material cultures and ideas about color. She is the author of Colors: What They Mean and How to Make Them.Introduction
Grasping Color: Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries
An Age-Old Interest in Color
The Sample, a Tiny World
In the Seventeenth Century, a Growing Range of Tools
An Ideal System: Eighteenth Century to Mid-Nineteenth Century
The Dyers’ Drive to Innovate
The Werner-Syme Nomenclature, a Color Chart for Understanding the World
In the Early Nineteenth Century, Chemists Work with Textile Samples
The Chaos of Synthetic Color: Mid- to Late Nineteenth Century
Teaching Manuals in Chemistry Reflect the Transformation
Continuing the Undertaking of Creating Order in the Sciences and the Arts
A Revolution in Color: Late Nineteenth Century to World War I
The Chemical Industry Uses the Color Chart to Promote the Dyeing of Raw Materials
Silk Thread Dyers Orient Their Color Charts Toward Creativity
The Retail Color Chart
A Struggle with the Limitations of the Color Chart
Bringing Color to the Masses: Between the World Wars
The Color Charts of a Thriving Chemical Industry
The Sewing and Fashion Industries: General Stability and a Few Innovations
The Paint Color Chart Introduces Users to New Products, Customs, and Perceptions
Fine Arts Color Charts Become Increasingly Decorative
Cosmetics Color Charts Reflect an Artistic Approach to Reproductions
Color Charts Appear Throughout the Household
Jubilation of Color: 1950s–1980s
The Color Chart in the Chemical Industry of the Trente Glorieuses
Color Charts for Clothing That Became More Colorful
In Interior Design, Color Charts for Increasingly Varied Applications
Color Charts for Artists’ Supplies: Teaching and Distancing
Cosmetics Color Charts Evoke Enthusiasm
The Color Chart: Multitude, Icon, Idol, 1990s to the Present
Ordinary and Extraordinary Color Charts
A Wide Range of Choices
In the 2000s, the Color Chart Moves from Icon to Idol
Color Charts and Artists
Elegy or Epilogue?
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Credits
Acknowledgments