Talk:Violet (color)

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[edit] Is Violet Purple?

This article equates violet with purple, which I think is wrong. For example, section 14 of Poynton's Color FAQ says that "the sensation of purple cannot be produced by a single wavelength". But the sensation of violet can be produced by a single wavelength (about 425 nm). --Zundark 22:42 Feb 25, 2003 (UTC)

The article confuses two concepts: spectral "violet" (really blue) and the color produced by mixing "red" (really magenta) and blue (i.e. spectral "violet"). :o)

MWAK--217.122.44.226 09:19, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

When I look at (spectral) violet light it certainly looks purple to me. I doubt that I'm alone here. The Cambridge Dictionary defines violet as "(having) a bluish purple colour".
Could it be that Poynton is wrong? Perhaps he's just got some technical idea of what purple is which is not exactly the same as the idea in common usage.
According to Wikipedia Purple is any of a group of colors intermediate between blue and red. This I think is what most people think of as purple. This includes violet. Poynton seems to only consider colours on the line of purple to be purple.
- Jimp a.k.a. Jim 23May05
Between blue and red on the RYGCBM color wheel, violet is near blue, magenta is farther away, and fuchsia is near red. Georgia guy 01:34, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
Yes, but as for purple, where is this? I'm suggesting that purple is a more general term to cover them all. The Cambridge Dictionary defines magenta as of a dark reddish purple colour, fuchsia as a pinkish-purple colour and indigo as (having) a bluish purple colour. Now, of course this one dictionary isn't necessarily the last word on the issue but I think it's pointing to something.
What I think it points to is the notion that it's not the RYGCBM colour wheel which is used in our everyday non-technical talking and thinking about colour but the traditional ROYGBP colour wheel. But, hey, it's the same wheel, isn't it? The only difference is that it's chopped up differently. The term purple, I'm suggesting, is one that describes a definite section of the wheel divided up in this traditional fashion.
Using red, yellow and blue as primary colours for mixing paint might not be very efficient but I don't agree that this means that the traditional colour wheel is wrong. It is correct to the extent that it reflects how we speak of colour in our ordinary unsophisticated daily lives.
Moreover, it seems to me that this is really a reflexion of how we actually percieve colour in our minds. Purple looks bluish and reddish. There's no way that yellow looks greenish and reddish. Nor does red look yellowish and magentaish ... or has our everyday usage of language and/or my primary school art lessons fooled me into so thinking?
Colour, it's a puzzle.
- Jimp 24May05
Regarding using the eye's perception of color to define colors, I think you should check out the color rant at http://www.gamecheetz.com/Rant.html (scroll down for the color rant.) The first part of it can be described as the opinion that the Gamecheetz webmaster had in 2002-2003 prior to taking computer graphics, based chiefly on the misnotion that the eye's perception of color decides which is the true color wheel. Then, in 2004, after taking computer graphics, the info below the text "RANT EDIT" showed a change in the webmaster's belief based on what he learned in computer graphics. The eye is not perfect. Georgia guy 13:45, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll check it out. ... Later ... Okay I've had a look at the rant.
It's interesting that not all of the errors in the first part were corrected in the second. He wrote Blue & Yellow only makes Green because the Yellow already contains Green in it. Blue cancels Yellow. Red & Green light make Yellow light because the Red and Green light each have Yellow in them already. This is not true. If you take pure spectral yellow; there's no red, no green, nothing but yellow in it. It's the same case with spectral red and spectral green: no yellow at all. Does he still think this or not? It's unclear.
He goes on, in the second part, to claim that the eye has has a 60 Hz framerate ... this is puzzling to say the least. Perhaps it's just poor phrasing but surely we don't see frame by frame as if we were watching a movie. I'd hazzard a guess that the maximimum framerate for games has something to do with 50 to 60 Hz's being the typical frequency for AC power outlets ... but what do I know about computer games? However, this is beside the point really.
His arguement is that the eye is not perfect. This is fair enough. No, it isn't perfect however does this mean therefore that "... the eye is obviously not a good instrument for deciding what color wheel is the true wheel ..."? My argument is that the idea that there exists a true or a correct colour wheel is misguided. Misguided at least in the sense that the traditional ROYGBP and the RYGCBM colour wheels are different wheels. In a sense you could call them the same wheel just sliced up differently.
He goes on to argue that The color wheel of light is the true color wheel. Okay, so what is the colour wheel of light? Is this colour wheel of light of his the RYGCBM colour wheel? It isn't clear whether is is or not he writes Well, let's try difining color. Color is a wavelength of light. Well, that decides it. So all we've really got is a spectrum wrapped into a wheel (presumably with the two ends joined up with some purple/magenta). Wouldn't this only be the unsliced wheel I've just mentioned?
What he hasn't mentioned is why red, green and blue should be the additive primaries nor why yellow, magenta and cyan should be the subtractive ones. There is, of course, no reason. These are not the primary colours. There are no such things. The thing is that these sets just happen to be the most efficient ... at least when it comes to mixing light and pigment respectively.
Enough of mixing light and pigment. How about mixing nouns and adjectives? What? Why, all of a sudden am I talking grammar? Georgia Guy, you mention defining colours. Yes, this is exactly what it's all about. Can we define violet as a kind of bluish purple? I say we can. More over, I say that this is the best definition for the typical layman who probably hasn't got an inferometer handy.
For better or for worse the way we describe colours in English is primarily based on the good old traditional ROYGBP colour wheel. Hence, when mixing neither pigments not lights but only mixing words the ROYGBP colour wheel is still in use. The adjectives orangish and purplish spring off the tongue before magentaish or cyanish ever would. Would you define violet as bluish magenta in a dictionary?
The ROYGBP colour wheel may be crap for mixing paint. It may give you ugly-as-sin pictures/graphics if you built a TV/computer sceen based on it. However, it is ingrained in our language and, as far as I know, most other languages too. At least to this extent it is true and correct. Why is this so? Isn't because our language is based on what our imperfect eyes tell us? Forget the technical details for a second and think of this. Is the traditional colour wheel not a reflexion of what we actually see?
Colour is in the mind. You don't need to mix pigments and lights. You dream in colour: no wavelengths, retinae and rods there (that you dream in black and white is an old wive's tale: too much black and white TV probably). It seems to me that the mind's primary colours are red, yellow and blue unless language and/or art lessons have fooled me as I suggested. - Jimp 25May05
The traditional wheel is not simply sliced up differently: in its common form magenta and cyan are not saturated — it shows a linear gradation from the lightest colour (yellow) to the darkest (violet). So colours that are real in the sense that they can both be perceived and imagined, are simply absent. So it's in a very real way defective and inadequate. It's very true the physical "eye" isn't the absolute measure of colour experience. But in a pragmatic/atomistic/instrumentalist way the rules gleaned by scientific research of the biology of colour perception "work" in describing and predicting our subjective experience and imagination — and if you're content to be a pragmatist/atomist/instrumentalist you might very well conclude that therefore primary colours are in the only sense that can be rationally given to that concept. If in contrast you choose not to stoop to the level of the idiot and you prefer a synthetic/dialectic/holist/coherentist interpretation of reality, then again the scientific system might satisfy you completely — or would you be astonished when the mixture of magenta and blue renders a bright purple and adding cyan to yellow creates a saturated green? Surely neither of these events is in any way counterintuitive? So the scientific theories seem to have at least a partial formal identity to a present system of colour experience.
But are you then simply fooled by language and art lessons? No. There is apparently a second system, connected to the first. When languages develop they almost invariably create their colour names in the same order: red first; either yellow second and green third or the other way round; blue fourth. Never a prescientific naming of magenta or cyan. This suggests there exists an innate secondary hierarchy of colour judgment. In this other system red, yellow green and blue are the important colours; and to lessen cognitive dissonance you feel they should be primary in the perceptual system also. That's why the traditional colour wheel is pleasing and "true" — and at the same time dull and incoherent as if the mind yearns for its solution in the higher truth of the new wheel. ;o)
--MWAK 07:15, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
So we come back to language and this is fitting because whether or not violet is a shade of purple really boils down to your definitions. MWAK, you mention a possible "innate secondary hierarchy of colour judgment" upon which we may have based our language. I've read that Brent Berlin and Paul Kay have described English as an eleven primary colour term language. This fits the way I'd describe colour. The mind may yearn for its "solution in the higher truth of the new wheel" but falls back on the given language's primary colour terms when it comes to speaking or writing about colour. I can talk of scarlet and crimson but in the back of my mind I know these to be shades of red, just as viridian is a shade of green and cerulean a shade of blue. What I'm suggesting is that purple is one of these primary colour terms in English and as such the term naturally would include indigo & violet. This is how things seem to me at least when it comes to everyday speech regardless of how the chromaticians may have wished to redefine the word. Jimp 06:54, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Violet may be confused with purple as in French "Violet" haven't got the same meaning. The French "Violet" is both for pure-spectral and lights-addition purples. And French people often confused English "Purple" with their French "Pourpre" which is a bluish red or reddish purple. French color names are often used as Paris is supposed to be the Capital of Fashion. So French people won't help you to maintain the distinction.

I like this fight between hue wheel and wavelength axis ^^ This is like the brain have choose to loopback on its visible spectrum for optimisation.

Notice that the color web "violet" is a pure purple and have nothing to do with the violet as a light with a shorter wavelength than blue light. Purple is the only way to simulate Violet on RGB screens.

Lacrymocéphale —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.154.218.123 (talk) 14:09, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] True or false??

True or false: A better title for this article is Violet (color), to distinguish it from Violet (flower), and for Violet to be a dis-ambiguation page. 66.32.100.26 21:52, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Neither use seems to me to be more prominant than the other so yes, that would be reasonable. But the article for the plant Violet is at Violet (plant), and if you are moving this to Violet (color) don't forget to make a redirect from Violet (colour) and to fix the links to this page (or at least list it at Wikipedia:disambiguation pages with links) -- sannse (talk) 22:04, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

But not like that :) - move using the move page function (logged in). I'll revert and move to preserve the history -- sannse (talk) 22:11, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

OK this is now at Violet (color) again. You may want to consider logging in so you can do moves like this yourself :) -- sannse (talk) 22:19, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
For the benefit of anyone re-reading this conversation, Violet (flower) is now Violet (plant) PhilHibbs 09:54, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Violet Dispution

What about this article is disputed?? 66.245.80.45 17:55, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I can see nothing. Perhaps it could be discussed here if the notice needs replacing -- sannse (talk) 19:04, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] List of terms associated with the color violet

At least some of these should be incorporated into this article. anthony (see warning) 22:38, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Who associates violet with these terms? Which cultures are we talking about? How widespread is the association? How consistent is it? If these questions are answered then they probably would be a useful addition to the article. Otherwise... -- sannse (talk) 09:48, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Reddish

The April 2004 edit by Hankwang says that violet looks redish because it stimulates the red receptors in the eye. I have had the same idea, since the spectrum almost covers a full octave it seems like it might be related to why a 440Hz A sounds "like" an 880Hz A. But is there a source to back this fact up or is it speculation? BenFrantzDale 07:07, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • I removed this paragraph since it sounds dubious without a citation. BenFrantzDale 02:15, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • It is still an interesting notion but I doubt that there is anything more to it than coincidence that the spectrum covers "almost covers a full octave". My hypothesis is that violet gets its reddish look in the mind not by stimulating the (so-called) red receptors in the eye. I could be wrong, of course. - Jimp 24May05
this confuses two concepts: Violet I (the extreme colour of the spectrum) and Violet II (extraspectral purple of a more blueish hue). Violet II does look more reddish because of red receptor stimulation. Violet I looks more reddish than cyan because its conceptually closer to red (i.e. on the colour wheel); just as green is...--MWAK 07:15, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Color of picture

Concerning the rectangle on the right, as my eyes move among various positions the rectangle on the right of the computer screen appears to change color from blue to dark violet depending on where I put my eyes. Why?? Georgia guy 01:58, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Are you using a flat-panel screen? They are very directional, and shades change especially when you view from different angles. Stan 03:03, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Consult a physician immediately. ;o) But then it could be caused by after-images or by innate asymmetric cone dispersion, so there's still hope :o). BTW the correct colour is the one you see when exactly in front of the colour spot; it's in fact quite blueish--MWAK 07:15, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Spectral violet

Please explain how spectral violet is different from the nearest RGB color. Georgia guy 00:54, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Assuming that by "RGB" you mean something like sRGB (which is based on CRTs), you can see the difference by looking at the diagram of a CRT gamut in the gamut article. Spectral violet is at the end of the spectral locus below the blue corner of the CRT gamut. The nearest RGB colour would be the blue corner (although this has the wrong hue, so a better approximation in some sense can be obtained by taking the point where a straight line from spectral violet to white meets the bottom edge of the CRT triangle). I don't know if it's worth adding anything like this to the article. Basically, it just comes down to the fact that spectral colours are too saturated to show on a CRT. --Zundark 08:08, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shades of...

See discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Color#Shades_of..._Subsections. PaleAqua 21:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Cannot be represented in RGB" - nonsense

Any color, including violet, can be represented in RGB system, given a concrete RGB system with enough gamut. It is true that violet does not fit into sRGB and AdobeRGB, for example, but it does fit into Adobe Wide Gamut RGB. In the latter system (0, 0, 255) is the perfect violet color by definition. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.202.217.28 (talk) 11:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC).

And what is blue using the same system?? Georgia guy 15:00, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
There is no such thing as "the perfect violet", and all RGB spaces that have real primaries necessarily have color triangles that do not include some colors. Live with it. Dicklyon 03:42, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Which way forward?

A couple points for a POLL: Do we want to include the "Shades of Violet Color Comparison Chart" (the stripes)? Do want all the trapped white space that comes from aligning in the infoboxes with the sections, or a more conventional readable layout? My preferred ways just got undone, so we better look for what the consensus is. Dicklyon 03:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

  • No stripe chart and less trapped white space are my preferences. Dicklyon 03:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
  • No chart. Keep alignment, though this may be a moot point if proposals in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Color are followed up, which would remove all or most color info boxes. Notinasnaid 08:59, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
  • My opinion is remove the chart, trim the non-notable shades, eliminate many of the info boxes, keep trapping where it makes sense for what remains. PaleAqua 09:25, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, hearing no objection, I'll take out the chart. I'll leave the white-space formatting to others. Dicklyon 05:59, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I object to removing the chart. The Color Comparison Chart displays the shades of a particular color in approximate order of their shades (from the lightest at the top to most saturated in the middle to the darkest at the bottom) rather than in alphabetical order as in the Shades Template at the bottom of the article. The purpose of these Color Comparison Charts is to enable the Wikipedia user to more easily pick out a particular color which they may need for a particular use. For example, if someone is going to design a website, repaint a room, paint their house, or purchase a new automobile, they can look at the Color Comparison Charts and choose which color is best for or is closest to the color they need. It is much easier to do this when the colors are arranged in order of their shade instead of being arranged in alphabetical order. In addition, they display colors such as Crayola colors which may not be in the regular color articles and thus allow the user a greater selection of colors to choose from. I have restored the shades of violet color comparison chart with an explanation as to its use and removing most of the colors and restricting it to only a small number of colors close to violet. Keraunos 09:55, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Another factor is, my vote should count for more because I wrote almost all of the content of this article on violet in the first place. However, I did remove most of the colors from the color comparison chart and restricted it to only a small number of colors close to violet in an attempt at compromise. Keraunos 10:27, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
I feel I have to say that original authorship conveys no more rights at all. (See WP:OWN). Arguably, less, because an original author may not be objective as to the aims and needs of Wikipedia. Personally, I feel the existence of the color chart is what is at issue, not whether it is large or small. The large number of unsourced and original research colors are a key problem. I believe all except CSS colors should be removed, and a contingent is calling for them to go as well. Notinasnaid 10:44, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Notinasaid, where can we find this discussion or contingent about CSS colors? Dicklyon 17:39, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

Keraunos, as the original author of lots of the color articles content, you are also more a part of the problem than of the solution. You have not responded to requests on your talk page for sources for the many factoids that you've added. I think you need to be more open to other wikipedia editors who would prefer that we move these articles toward being encyclopedic. Dicklyon 13:56, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I've been adding sources for the colors in the color boxes. Not all of the factoids have been added by me, but for the ones that have been added by me, I'll start adding more references for them. Keraunos 10:18, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that will be very helpful. Dicklyon 14:21, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Terrible Photo

Will someone please remove the photo or replace it with something else? I'm talking about the nearly black flowers (which I presume are "violets," which lends that much more silliness to the photo -- it looks as if one has come to the wrong Wikipedia page). Those flowers are way off from the color of violet. Thanks ~ Softlavender (talk) 06:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Strange..

The article says "violet may refer to a shade of purple".The article about purple says "purple refers to combinations of blue and red in various degrees, as violet has more narrow sence and violet is a spactrum colour." But looking at the bottom of the page, I see a category "shades of violet" I mean isn't better to call it "shades of purple" ??! Xr 1 (talk) 21:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Please explain why "shades of purple" makes more sense than "shades of violet". Category:Shades of violet is an active category; Category:Shades of purple is not. Georgia guy (talk) 22:17, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Firstly, - because purple has more general meaning as violet has a narrow meaning. (see above)
  • Secondly, Because in the category "Shades of Violet" purple is included -> purple is a shade of violet, but the article says something like "violet is a shade of purple".
  • Thirdly, beacuse colours like eggplant ("Eggplant is a brownish-purple color "), magenta ("Magenta is a purplish red color"), and orchid ("Orchid is a light purple color.") - variations of purple are included under this category.

Xr 1 (talk) 22:58, 13 February 2008 (UTC)