Talk:Azure

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[edit] Proposed merge

I don't think it's useful to disambiguate Azure (color) from the use of Azure as a tincture. Tincture is merely a specific application of color, and could easily be discussed in all its intricacy in the same article. Please discuss here. (I am putting a link to this page at Talk:Azure (color) and Talk:Azure (disambiguation). --Dystopos 19:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

support per above. --Dystopos 19:41, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
oppose since azure (color) is a precisely defined shade of blue, whereas azure (heraldic tincture) encompasses a whole suite of shades of blue. It will also be very difficult to manage to keep these two issues separate within a single article link as the azure (heraldic tincture) page contines to grow with additional historical information about its use in heraldry. One item I am currently researching is what compounds were used in heraldic texts to tincture them blue. These shades and compounds will have nothing whatever to do with azure (color), as many of them will be a different shade and will appear in a different context. In short, the word "tincture" here has nothing to do with the artistic definition of "tincture". It is not a "specific application of color" in this case, but is an heraldic use of color. It is a definition of use, and not one of hue. The two issue are not related and should remain as separate articles. --EncycloPetey 02:31, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it is erroneous to say that azure has any precise definition as a color. The concept of azure as a color is drawn from its use in heraldry and other crafts and arts. They are not to be separately defined at all. If different pigments are used to create a color field designated as "azure" then they are just as much "azure" as crushed lapis lazuli or the skies of france. At some level, "Azure" just means "blue" - and it means that to people who are limited by the pigments and dyes at hand. The Azure (color) article needs this content more than it needs somebody's arbitrary idea of what CMYK percentages are "really" azure. --Dystopos 04:42, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

The text you have written might make a fine addition to the Azure (color) article, then, but it doesn't apply to the concept of heraldic azure. The complication in your argument is that someone has given modern color theory azure a specific CMYK definition. And this still doesn't help with the dual (and very different) definitions of color and tincture that would be required. I think to be convinced that a merger is at all possible, I would have to see a proposed draft of the merged article that successfully handles these disparities. Look around at the various articles that the Wikiproject on color has been doing. They do not fit in with heraldic focus articles. Look also at the links to the page on azure in heraldry; they are almost all pages about flags and coats of arms, where only the heraldic definition is relevant. It would be needlessly confusing to add a CMYK and hex coding to the article, which would not apply to the various linking articles. --EncycloPetey 05:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Also, please do not delete comments I have made. Reinserting deleted text:

oppose -- while in color theory azure (color) is a precisely defined shade of blue, azure (heraldic tincture) encompasses a whole suite of shades of blue. Explaining this difference is exteremly difficult and tedious, which is why I created a separate page for the heraldic color azure apart from the color theory color azure. It will also be very difficult to manage to keep these two issues separate within a single article link as the azure (heraldic tincture) page contines to grow with additional historical information about its use in heraldry. One item I am currently researching is what compounds were used in heraldic texts to tincture them blue. These shades and compounds will have nothing whatever to do with azure (color), as many of them will be a different shade and will appear in a different context. Since heealdic azure actually means darker shade of blue, we would have to merge all the color articles on dark shades of blue together if we wanted to preserve the heraldic meaning. This would be a Bad Idea.

To try to explain it simply, both the word tincture and the word color have different meanings in terms of color theory and of heraldry. In color theory, it is true that "tincture is merely a specific application of color". However, this statement is dead wrong for heraldry. In heraldry, a color is a subcategory of the tinctures; the other two subcategories are metals and furs. This definition would make no sense to a color theorist. To combine azure (color theory) and azure (heraldic color) into a single article thus would require re-defining both color and tincture two times in a single article, and the result would be more text about the differences in meaning of color and tincture between heraldry and color theory than actual text about either meaning of azure. The two sense of the word azure are operationally and theoretically distinct and should remain as separate articles. --EncycloPetey 02:31, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

If I deleted any comments, it was purely accidental -- perhaps an edit conflict. My apologies.

Some searching around emphasizes that there is no agreement on a precise "azure" color in any color system. Scotland has, after many centuries, settled on Pantone 300 for their azure flag while the UK uses a much darker Azure for the Union Flag. Visibone uses RGB 51,153,255 for their color reference products. An 8th century Persion would use crushed Lapis Lazuli. A 14th century poet would refer to the sky itself. And, in the exact same vein, a herald would use horizontal lines, lapis lazuli, ultramarine, or whatever blue was around. These are all descriptions of a color, which should be part of the main article. What would you think about putting a generalized article that includes a brief section on tincture at Azure and then a much more detailed treatment of heraldic uses at Azure (tincture). In my opinion the name Azure is, first and foremost, the name of a color and should be the primary article (unlike, say, gules which hardly ever is used to name a color outside of heraldic convention). --Dystopos 16:08, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with your assertion that azure is "first and foremost" a color, since (as I pointed out) the majority of links on Wikipedia to the azure page are heraldic uses. I checked this before deciding whether the CMYK color or the heraldic color should be the primary page. This is why I chose to make the default azure page a page about the heraldic tincture instead of a page about the CMYK color, and instead of using "azure (heraldry)" for the heraldic color as I did with Or and sable (where indeed the primary definition used in English is not the heraldic tincture). Your arguments about what you found for azure support my position, in that azure is not a specific color, but is used in flags (a heraldic use). You also have not shown that azure is more frequently used (in any particular context) to mean a specific color than it is a heraldic tincture, and the link ratio I've mentioned argues against your position. As it is, only the two of us seem to have any opinion, so I think further debate is irrelevant until that situation changes. --EncycloPetey 09:02, 7 January 2006 (UTC)