Ostwald color system

The website is glossary of art and design.

The Color Primer: A Basic Treatise on the Color System of Wilhelm Ostwald. (Hardcover) by Wilhelm Ostwald (Author), Faber Birren (Editor), 1969.

The Color Helm was a cardboard volvelle wheelchart made in 1940 by Fiatelle Inc that you could use to pick specific color combinations. A fashion-specific version was sold by Sears and advertised in their 1940 Fall/Winter catalog. Image source: https://cstaecker.fairfield.edu/~cstaecker/machines/colorhelm.html

The Munsell color system is a means to visually identify and match color. Since color is applicable in so many fields, learning how to read these color charts and numbers can be very useful. Here is a step-by-step.

In 1810, the last year of his young life, painter Philipp Otto Runge devised his Color Sphere, one of the first attempts to depict a comprehensive color system in three dimensions. Runge was a correspondent of Goethe, who was also interested in color theory. The image above is from Runge's book, Farbenkugel. It comes from…

Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (1853 – 1932). Illustration: Cluster of similarly dark-toned colours, 'Die Farbenfibel' (The colour primer). Leipzig, Germany: Unesma; 1921. Accessible at https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/3f462642b

Wilhelm Ostwald | Color Wheels