Purple

Purple

— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet #800080
sRGBB (r, g, b) (128, 0, 128)
HSV (h, s, v) (300°, 100%, 50%)
Source HTML
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

Purple is a range of hues of color occurring between red and blue,[1] and is classified as a secondary color as the colors (blue and red) are required to create the shade.

In color theory, "purple" is defined as any non-spectral color between violet and red (excluding violet and red themselves).[2]

In art, purple is acknowledged as the color on the color wheel between magenta and violet and its tints and shades.[3]

Contents

Etymology and definitions

The word 'purple' comes from the Old English word purpul which derives from the Latin purpura, in turn from the Greek πορφύρα (porphura),[4] name of the Tyrian purple dye manufactured in classical antiquity from a mucus secreted by the spiny dye-murex snail.[5][6]

The first recorded use of the word 'purple' in English was in the year A.D. 975.[7]

Properties

The Munsell color system is a color space that specifies colors based on three color dimensions: hue, value (lightness), and chroma (color purity), spaced uniformly in three dimensions in the elongated oval at an angle shaped Munsell color solid according to the logarithmic scale which governs human perception. In order for all the colors to be spaced uniformly, it was found necessary to use a color wheel with five primary colors—red, yellow, green, blue, and purple. The Munsell colors displayed are only approximate as they have been adjusted to fit into the sRGB gamut.

On a chromaticity diagram, the straight line connecting the extreme spectral colors (red and violet) is known as the line of purples (or 'purple boundary'); it represents one limit of human color perception. The color magenta used in the CMYK printing process is near the center of the line of purples, but most people associate the term "purple" with a somewhat bluer tone, such as is displayed by the color "electric purple" (a color also directly on the line of purples), shown below. Some common confusion exists concerning the color names "purple" and "violet". Purple is a mixture of red and blue light, whereas violet is a spectral color.

On the CIE xy chromaticity diagram, purple shades located on the straight line connecting the extreme colors red and violet; this line is known as the line of purples, or the purple line.[8][9]

Shades of purple

Purple (HTML/CSS color) (patriarch) is used in HTML and CSS actually is deeper and has a more reddish hue (#800080) than the X11 color purple known as purple (X11) (#A020F0), which is bluer and brighter. A traditional name sometimes used for this tone of purple is patriarch. The first recorded use of patriarch as a color name in English was in 1925.[10]

Purple (Munsell)

— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet #9F00C5
RGBB (r, g, b) (159, 0, 197)
HSV (h, s, v) (288°, 100%, 77[11]%)
Source Munsell Color Wheel
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

This shade is precisely halfway between violet and magenta, being the artistic definition of purple.[12] This shade has also been referred to by Robert Ridgway in his 1912 book Color Standards and Color Nomenclature as true purple.[13]

The pure essence of purple was approximated in pigment in the late 1960s by mixing fluorescent magenta and fluorescent blue pigments together to make fluorescent purple to use in psychedelic black light paintings. The shade is also referred to as phlox, as it is the color of the phlox flower. The first recorded use of phlox as a color name in English was in 1918.[14]

Main article: Han Purple
Main article: Heliotrope (color)

The color heliotrope is a brilliant tone of purple; it is a pink-purple tint that is a representation of the color of the heliotrope flower. The first recorded use of heliotrope as a color name in English was in 1882.[15]

Main article: Orchid (color)

The traditional name for this tone of purple is veronica. The first recorded use of veronica as a color name in English was in 1919.[16]

The first recorded use of royal purple as a color name in English was in 1661.[17]

Thistle is a pale purplish color resembling the thistle plant. The first recorded use of Thistle as a color name in English was in 1892.[18] The color thistle is associated with Scotland as the thistle is the national flower of Scotland (Scotland's highest state decoration is also the Order of the Thistle).

Main article: Tyrian purple

The shade violet is a spectral color (approximately 380–420 nm), of a shorter wavelength than blue, while purple is a combination of red and blue or violet light.[19] The purples are colors that are not spectral colors – purples are extra-spectral colors. In fact, purple was not present on Newton's color wheel (which went directly from violet to red), though it is on modern ones, between red and violet. There is no such thing as the "wavelength of purple light"; it only exists as a combination.[2] Pure violet cannot be reproduced by a Red-Green-Blue (RGB) color system, but it can be approximated by mixing blue and red. The resulting color has the same hue but a lower saturation than pure violet. One psychophysical feature of the two colors that can be used to separate them is their appearance with increase of light intensity. Violet, as light intensity increases, appears to take on a far more blue hue as a result of what is known as the Bezold-Brücke shift.

In nature

Bacteria

Plants

The pansy flower has varieties that exhibit three different colors: pansy (a color between indigo and violet), pansy pink, and pansy purple. The first recorded use of pansy purple as a color name in English was in 1814.[21]

Animals

In culture

Academic dress

Anti-apartheid movement

Astronomy

Billiard games

Calendars

Cultural associations

Food

The first recorded use of mulberry as a color name in English was in 1776.[23]

Geography

Heraldry

History

Holocaust

Literature

Microbiology

Military

Mourning

Music

Parapsychology

People

Phobias

Politics

Religious text

Sexuality

Transpersonal psychology

Transportation planning

Vexillology

See also

References

  1. ^ Mish, Frederic C., Editor in Chief Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.:1984--Merriam-Webster Page 957
  2. ^ a b P. U.P. A Gilbert and Willy Haeberli (2008). Physics in the Arts. Academic Press. p. 112. ISBN 0123741505. http://books.google.com/books?id=qSRqXvZ67lQC&pg=PA112. 
  3. ^ Graham, Lanier F. (editor) The Rainbow Book Berkeley, California: Shambhala Publications and The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (1976) (Handbook for the Summer 1976 exhibition The Rainbow Art Show which took place primarily at the De Young Museum but also at other museums) Portfolio of color wheels by famous theoreticians—see Rood color wheel (1879) p. 93
  4. ^ πορφύρα, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
  5. ^ "Online Etymology Dictionary". http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=purple. 
  6. ^ purple, Oxford Dictionaries
  7. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, second edition
  8. ^ Charles A. Poynton (2003). Digital video and HDTV. Morgan Kaufmann. ISBN 1558607927. http://books.google.com/books?id=ra1lcAwgvq4C&pg=RA1-PA221. 
  9. ^ John Dakin and Robert G. W. Brown (2006). Handbook of Optoelectronics. CRC Press. ISBN 0750306467. http://books.google.com/books?id=fY98hmhWp58C&pg=PA381. 
  10. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 201; Color Sample of Patriarch: Page 109 Plate 43 Color Sample L9
  11. ^ web.forret.com Color Conversion Tool set to hex code #9F00C5 (Purple (Munsell)):
  12. ^ Graham, Lanier F. (editor) The Rainbow Book Berkeley, California:1976 Shambala Publishing and The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Handbook for the Summer 1976 exhibition The Rainbow Art Show which took place primarily at the De Young Museum but also at other museums) Portfolio of color wheels by famous theoreticians—see Rood color wheel (1879) Page 93 Purple is halfway between magenta and violet
  13. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Discussion of the color Purple, Page 175; Color Sample of True Purple: Page 125 Plate 51 Color Sample A12
  14. ^ A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill, Page 201; Color Sample of Phlox: Page 131 Plate 54 Color Sample H12—The color Phlox is shown lying halfway between magenta and purple.
  15. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 196; Color Sample of Heliotrope: Page 131 Plate 54 Color Sample C10
  16. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 201; Color Sample of Veronica: Page 109 Plate 43 Color Sample H9
  17. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 203; Color Sample of Royal Purple: Page 109 Plate 43 Color Sample K11
  18. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 196; Color Sample of Thistle: Page 107 Plate 42 Color Sample J7
  19. ^ Louis Bevier Spinney (1911). A Text-book of Physics. Macmillan Co.. http://books.google.com/books?id=5zgFAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA573. 
  20. ^ D.A. Bryant & N.-U. Frigaard (November 2006). "Prokaryotic photosynthesis and phototrophy illuminated". Trends Microbiol. 14 (11): 488. doi:10.1016/j.tim.2006.09.001. PMID 16997562. 
  21. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 201; Color Sample of Pansy Purple: Page 131 Plate 54 Color Sample L8
  22. ^ Barnett, Lincoln and the editorial staff of Life The World We Live In New York:1955--Simon and Schuster—Page 284
  23. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 199; Color Sample of Mulberry: Plate 48 Color Sample E9
  24. ^ Bibelforshcer—The German name for “Jehovah’s Witnesses”:
  25. ^ Early Earth Was Purple, Study Suggests:
  26. ^ Twain, Mark,"The Prince and the Pauper", ISBN 0 14 04.3669 3, Penguin Books, 1997, p.71.
  27. ^ Lyrics and audio recording of the song Purple People Eater:
  28. ^ Swami Panchadasi The Human Aura: Astral Colors and Thought Forms Des Plaines, Illinois, USA:1912--Yogi Publications Society Page 37
  29. ^ Fire Destroys Home of Tiburon’s ‘Purple Lady’—San Francisco Chronicle October 22, 2009
  30. ^ "P-". The Phobia List. http://phobialist.com/#P-. Retrieved 6 March 2011. 
  31. ^ Varichon, Anne Colors:What They Mean and How to Make Them New York:2006 Abrams Page 140 – This information is in the caption of a color illustration showing an 8th Century manuscript page of the Gospel of Luke written in gold on Tyrian purple parchment.
  32. ^ October 20, 2010 Spirit Day—the Day to Wear Purple by Lindsay Christ—Long Island Free Press October 20, 2010:
  33. ^ Why Wearing Purple Will Protest Bullying:
  34. ^ October 20th is Spirit Day in Hollywood—Neon Tommy’s Daily Hollywood:
  35. ^ Yahoo Gay Pride Avatars:
  36. ^ Leary’s 8 Calibre Brain Psychic Magazine April 1976
  37. ^ A black and white copy of the chart may be found at the front of the following book: Leary, Timothy – "Info-Psychology", New Falcon Publications. ISBN 1-56184-105-6
  38. ^ Legendary “Purple Banner of Castile” or “Commoner’s Banner”:

Further reading

External links

Shades of violet
Amethyst Byzantium Cerise Eggplant Fandango Fuchsia Heliotrope Indigo Lavender blush Lavender (floral)
                   
Lavender (web) Magenta Orchid Plum Purple Red-violet Rose Thistle Violet Wisteria
                   
The samples shown above are only indicative.
Web colors
black gray silver white maroon red purple fuchsia green lime olive yellow navy blue teal aqua