Figure 1.-- This minimally colorized photograph seems to show a class group after school during the 1920s. Colorized images are one source of information on color, but the depictions are of questionable accuracy. Sometimes with individual portraits, the studio may have made notes, but in a photograph like this the colorists probably made guesses. Of course using popular colors at the time. It looks like the coloriss splashed blue for the sky. Colorizing this image would have been very complicated and time consuming.

We do not yet have a large enough inventory of German color images to build a color chronology. We have however begun to build an inventory of colored images that will allow us to build a chronolgy. Here we often have to guess the decade as many images are undated. This is generlly possible, but not always. This will help us better see the use of color in Germnan fashion over time. Information on the use of color was not well reflected in the photographic record. Color photography only became common in the 1970s. Thus a range of information sources have to be used.

Created: 12:31 AM 8/27/2010
Last updated: 12:31 AM 8/27/2010