George A. Agoston – författare

This book directly addresses a long-felt, unsatisfied need of modern color science - an appreciative and technically sound presentation of the principles and main offerings of colorimetry to artists and designers, written by one of them. With his unique blend of training and experience in engineering, with his lifelong interest and, latterly, career in art and art education, Dr. Agoston is unusually well prepared to convey the message of color science to art and design. His book fulfills the hopes I had when I first heard about him and his book. I foresee important and long-lasting impacts of this book, analogous to those of the epoch-making writings by earlier artist-scientists, such as Leonardo, Chevreul, Munsell, and Pope. Nearly all persons who have contributed to color science, recently as well as formerly, were attracted to the study of color by color in art. Use of objective or scientific methods did not result from any cold, detached attitude, but from the inherent difficulties of the problems concerning color and its use, by which they were intrigued. Modern education and experience has taught many people how to tackle difficult problems by use of scientific methods. Therefore - color science.

This book directly addresses a long-felt, unsatisfied need of modern color science - an appreciative and technically sound presentation of the principles and main offerings of colorimetry to artists and designers, written by one of them. With his unique blend of training and experience in engineering, with his lifelong interest and, latterly, career in art and art education, Dr. Agoston is unusually well prepared to convey the message of color science to art and design. His book fulfills the hopes I had when I first heard about him and his book. I foresee important and long-lasting impacts of this book, analogous to those of the epoch-making writings by earlier artist-scientists, such as Leonardo, Chevreul, Munsell, and Pope. Nearly all persons who have contributed to color science, recently as well as formerly, were attracted to the study of color by color in art. Use of objective or scientific methods did not result from any cold, detached attitude, but from the inherent difficulties of the problems concerning color and its use, by which they were intrigued. Modern education and experience has taught many people how to tackle difficult problems by use of scientific methods. Therefore - color science.

My aim in this introductory text is to present a comprehensible discussion of certain technical topics and recent developments in color science that I believe are of real interest to artists and designers. I treat a number of applications of this knowledge, for example in selection and use of colorants (pigments and dyes) and light. Early in the book I discuss what color is and what its characteristics are. This is followed by a chapter on pertinent aspects of light, light as the stimulus that causes the perception of color. Then the subject of the colors of opaque and transparent, nonfluorescent and fluorescent materials is taken up. There are sections on color matching, color mixture, and color primaries. Chapter 6 introduces the basic ideas that underlie the universal method (CIE) of color specification. Later chapters show how these ideas have been extended to serve other purposes such as systematic color naming, de­ termining complementary colors, mixing colored lights, and demonstrating the limitations of color gamuts of colorants. The Munsell and the Ostwald color systems and the Natural Colour System (Sweden) are explained, and the new Uniform Color Scales (Optical Society of America) are described. Color specification itself is a broad topic. The information presented here is relevant in art and design, for those who work with pigments and dyes or with products that contain them, such as paints, printing inks, plastics, glasses, mosaic tesserae, etc.