Editing Munsell color system (section)

== History and influence ==
[[File:Runge Farbenkugel.jpg|thumb|left|[[Philipp Otto Runge|Runge]]'s ''Farbenkugel'' (Color Sphere), 1810<ref group=lower-alpha>There are mathematical issues with this depiction: If one calls the concentric rings "chroma" and the horizontal stripes "lightness", then it is not possible to have a color whose "chroma" is 2 (counting from the center outward) and "lightness" is 9 (counting from the bottom to the top). This means that each color cannot be uniquely identified by a single set of "hue", "lightness" and "chroma" values. Albert Munsell's color sphere was designed in such a way as to avoid this pitfall, however.</ref>]]

[[File:Albert-munsell.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Albert H. Munsell]]]]
[[File:Munsell Books.jpg|thumb|Several editions of the ''Munsell Book of Color''. The atlas is arranged into removable pages of color swatches of varying value and chroma for each of 40 particular hues.]]

The idea of using a three-dimensional [[color solid]] to represent all colors was developed during the 18th and 19th centuries. Several different shapes for such a solid were proposed, including: a double triangular pyramid by [[Tobias Mayer]] in 1758, a single triangular pyramid by [[Johann Heinrich Lambert]] in 1772, a sphere by [[Philipp Otto Runge]] in 1810, a hemisphere by [[Michel Eugène Chevreul]] in 1839, a cone by [[Hermann von Helmholtz]] in 1860, a tilted cube by William Benson in 1868, and a slanted double cone by [[August Kirschmann]] in 1895.<ref name="kuenhi1"/> These systems became progressively more sophisticated, with Kirschmann’s even recognizing the difference in value between bright colors of different hues. But all of them remained either purely theoretical or encountered practical problems in accommodating all colors. Furthermore, none was based on any rigorous scientific measurement of human vision; before Munsell, the relationship between hue, value, and chroma was not understood.<ref name="kuenhi1">Kuenhi (2002), pp. 20–21</ref>

Albert Munsell, an artist and professor of art at the Massachusetts Normal Art School (now [[Massachusetts College of Art and Design]], or MassArt), wanted to create a "rational way to describe color" that would use decimal notation instead of color names (which he felt were "foolish" and "misleading"),<ref>{{harv|Munsell|1905}}, [https://archive.org/details/acolornotation00munsgoog/page/n16 <!-- pg=7 quote="rational way to describe color". --> ch.1, pg. 7]</ref> which he could use to teach his students about color. He first started work on the system in 1898 and published it in full form in ''A Color Notation'' in 1905.

The original embodiment of the system (the 1905 Atlas) had some deficiencies as a physical representation of the theoretical system. These were improved significantly in the 1929 ''Munsell Book of Color'' and through an extensive series of experiments carried out by the [[Optical Society of America]] in the 1940s resulting in the notations (sample definitions) for the modern ''Munsell Book of Color''. Though several replacements for the Munsell system have been invented, building on Munsell's foundational ideas—including the Optical Society of America's [[OSA-UCS|Uniform Color Scales]], and the [[International Commission on Illumination]]’s [[CIELAB]] (''L*a*b*'') and [[CIECAM02]] color models—the Munsell system is still widely used, by, among others, [[American National Standards Institute|ANSI]] to define [[human skin color|skin color]] and [[human hair color|hair color]] for [[forensic pathology]], the [[United States Geological Survey|USGS]] for matching [[soil color]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Klink |first1=Galya V. |last2=Prilipova |first2=Elena S. |last3=Sobolev |first3=Nikolay S. |last4=Semenkov |first4=Ivan N. |date=2023-10-01 |title=Perceptual variance of natural soil aggregates with the Munsell soil colour charts by unexperienced observers: Case study for diverse soils |journal=Geoderma |volume=438 |pages=116645 |doi=10.1016/j.geoderma.2023.116645 |issn=0016-7061|doi-access=free |bibcode=2023Geode.438k6645K }}</ref> in [[prosthodontics]] during the selection of [[tooth color]] for [[dental restoration]]s, and [[brewery|breweries]] for matching [[beer color]].<ref>MacEvoy (2005)</ref><ref>Landa (2005), [http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/45931/page/5;jsessionid=aaa5LVF0 pp. 442–443] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170422030238/http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/45931/page/5;jsessionid=aaa5LVF0 |date=2017-04-22 }}.</ref><ref group=lower-alpha>Beer color is measured in [[Degrees Lovibond]], a metric based on the Munsell system</ref>

The original Munsell color chart remains useful for comparing computer models of human color vision.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://bottosson.github.io/posts/oklab/#munsell-data|title = A perceptual color space for image processing| date=23 December 2020 }}</ref>