Pink

This article is about the color pink. For the singer known as Pink (P!nk), see Pink (singer). For other uses, see Pink (disambiguation).
Pink
    Color coordinates
Hex triplet #FFCBDB
sRGBB  (r, g, b) (255, 203, 219)
CMYKH   (c, m, y, k) (0, 20, 14, 0)
HSV       (h, s, v) (341.5°, 20.4%, 100%)
Source HTML/CSS[1]
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)
H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

Pink is a pale red color, which takes its name from the flower of the same name.[2][3] According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is positively associated with love, beauty, charm, politeness, sensitivity, tenderness, sweetness, childhood, femininity, and the romantic. When combined with violet or black, it is associated with eroticism and seduction.[4]

Pink was first used as a color name in the late 17th century.[5]

Varieties and uses

See also: Shades of pink

Etymology and definitions

The color pink is named after the flowers called pinks, flowering plants in the genus Dianthus. The name derives from the frilled edge of the flowers—the verb "to pink" dates from the 14th century and means "to decorate with a perforated or punched pattern" (possibly from German pinken, "to peck").[6] While the word "pink" was first used as a noun to refer to a color in the 17th century, the verb "pink" continues to be reflected today in the name of those hand-held scissors that cut a zig-zagged line referred to as pinking shears.

History, art and fashion

From the ancient world to the Renaissance

A delicate shade of pink from the flower bud of the quince plant.

The color pink has been described in literature since ancient times. In the Odyssey, written in approximately 800 BCE, Homer wrote "Then, when the child of morning, rosy-fingered dawn appeared..."[7] Roman poets also described the color. Roseus is the Latin word meaning "rosy" or "pink." Lucretius used the word to describe the dawn in his epic poem On the Nature of Things (De rerum natura).[8]

Pink was not a common color in the fashion of the Middle Ages; nobles usually preferred brighter reds, such as crimson. However, it did appear in women's fashion, and in religious art. In the 13th and 14th century, in works by Cimabue and Duccio, the Christ child was sometimes portrayed dressed in pink, the color associated with the body of Christ.

In the high Renaissance painting the Madonna of the Pinks by Raphael, the Christ child is presenting a pink flower to the Virgin Mary. The pink was a symbol of marriage, showing a spiritual marriage between the mother and child.[9]

During the Renaissance, pink was mainly used for the flesh color of faces and hands. The pigment commonly used for this was called light cinabrese; it was a mixture of the red earth pigment called sinopia, or Venetian red, and a white pigment called Bianco San Genovese, or lime white. In his famous 15th century manual on painting, Il Libro Dell'Arte, Cennino Cennini described it this way: "The color is made of the hansomest and lightest sinoper obtainable, and it is mixed and worked up with lime white; and this white is made from very white and well-purified lime. And when these two colors are well worked up together, that is, two parts cinabrese and the third lime white, make little cakes of it, like halves of nuts, and let them dry. Whenever you need some, take what you think fit; for this color does you credit in painting countenances, hands, and nudes on the wall."[10]

The 18th century

The golden age of the color pink was the Rococo Period (1720–1777) in the 18th century, when pastel colors became very fashionable in all the courts of Europe. Pink was particularly championed by Madame de Pompadour (1721–1764), the mistress of King Louis XV of France. who wore combinations of pale blue and pink, and had a particular tint of pink made for her by the Sevres porcelain factory, created by adding nuances of blue, black and yellow.[11]

While pink was quite evidently the color of seduction in the portraits made by George Romney of Emma, Lady Hamilton, the future mistress of Admiral Horatio Nelson, in the late 18th century, it had the completely opposite meaning in the portrait of Sarah Barrett Moulton painted by Thomas Lawrence in 1794. In this painting, it symbolized childhood, innocence and tenderness. Sarah Moulton was just eleven years old when the picture was painted, and died the following year.

The 19th century

In 19th century England, pink ribbons or decorations were often worn by young boys; boys were simply considered small men, and while men in England wore red uniforms, boys wore pink. In fact the clothing for children in the 19th century was almost always white, since, before the invention of chemical dyes, clothing of any color would quickly fade when washed in boiling water. Queen Victoria was painted in 1850 with her seventh child and third son, Prince Arthur, who wore white and pink.

The 20th century

In the 20th century, pinks became bolder, brighter, and more assertive, in part because of the invention of chemical dyes which did not fade. The pioneer in the creation of the new wave of pinks was the Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli, (1890-1973) who was aligned with the artists of the surrealist movement, including Jean Cocteau. In 1931 she created a new variety of the color, called Shocking pink, made by mixing magenta with a small amount of white. She launched a perfume called Shocking, sold in a bottle in the shape of a woman's torso, said to be modelled on that of Mae West. Her fashions, co-designed with artists such as Cocteau, featured the new pinks.[12]

In Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, inmates of Nazi concentration camps who were accused of homosexuality were forced to wear a pink triangle.[13] Because of this, the pink triangle has become a symbol of the modern gay rights movement.

The transition to pink as a sexually differentiating color for girls occurred gradually, through the selective process of the marketplace, in the 1930s and 40s. In the 1920s, some groups had been describing pink as a masculine color, an equivalent of the red that was considered to be for men, but lighter for boys. But stores nonetheless found that people were increasingly choosing to buy pink for girls, and blue for boys, until this became an accepted norm in the 1940s.[14][15]

In 1973, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville created "Pink," a broadside meant to explore the notions of gender as associated with the color pink, for an American Institute of Graphic Arts exhibition about color. This was the only entry about the color pink. Various women including many in the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman's Building submitted entries exploring their association with the color. De Bretteville arranged the squares of paper to form a "quilt" from which posters were printed and disseminated throughout Los Angeles.[16] She was often called "Pinky" as a result.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Surrounded Islands wrapped wooded islands in Miami's Biscayne Bay with 6,500,000 sq ft (600,000 m2) of bright pink fabric.[17] Thomas von Taschitzki has said that "the monochrome pink wrappings"..."form a counterpoint to the small green wooded islands."[18]

Many of Franz West's aluminium sculptures were often painted a bright pink, for example Sexualitätssymbol (Symbol of Sexuality). West has said that the pink was intended as an "outcry to nature".[19]

Science and nature

Optics

In optics, pink can refer to any of the colors between bluish red (purple) and red, of medium to high brightness and of low to moderate saturation.[20] Although pink is generally considered a tint of red,[21][22] most variations of pink lie between red, white and magenta colors. This means that the pink's hue is between red and magenta.[23][24][25][26]

Why sunrises and sunsets sometimes look pink

As a ray of white sunlight travels through the atmosphere, some of the colors are scattered out of the beam by air molecules and airborne particles. This is called Rayleigh scattering. Colors with a shorter wavelength, such as blue and green, scatter more strongly, and are removed from the light that finally reaches the eye.[27] At sunrise and sunset, when the path of the sunlight through the atmosphere to the eye is longest, the blue and green components are removed almost completely, leaving the longer wavelength orange, red and pink light. The remaining pinkish sunlight can also be scattered by cloud droplets and other relatively large particles, which give the sky above the horizon a pink or reddish glow.[28]

Geology

Biology

  1. ^ [1] New Scientist, "Colorful pigs evolved through farming, not nature".

Why cooked beef, cured ham, steamed shrimp and salmon are pink

Raw beef is red, because the muscles of vertebrate animals, such as cows and pigs, contain a protein called myoglobin, which binds oxygen and iron atoms. When beef is cooked, the myoglobin proteins undergo oxidation, and gradually turn from red to pink to brown; that is, from rare to medium to well-done. Pork contains less myoglobin than beef and therefore is less red; when heated, it changes from pinkish-red to less pink to tan or white.

Ham, though it contains myoglobins like beef, undergoes a different transformation. Traditional hams, such as prosciutto, are made by taking the hind leg or thigh of a pig, covering it with sea salt, which removes the moisture content, and then letting it dry or cure for as long as two years. The salt (sodium nitrate) permits the ham to retain its original pink color, even when dried out. Supermarket hams are made by a different and faster process; they are brined, or infused with a salt-water solution, containing sodium nitrite, which transfers nitric oxide, which bonds with the myoglobin to form the traditional pink cured ham color.

The shells and flesh of crustaceans such as crabs, lobsters and shrimp contain a pink carotenoid pigment called astaxanthin. Their shells, naturally blue-green, turn pink or red when cooked. The flesh of the salmon also contains astaxanthins, which makes it pink. Farm-bred salmon are sometimes fed these pigments to improve their pinkness, and it is sometimes also used to enhance the color of egg yolks.

Plants and flowers

Pink is one of the most common colors of flowers; it serves to attract the insects and birds necessary for pollination and perhaps also to deter predators. The color comes from natural pigments called anthocyanins, which also provide the pink in raspberries.

Pigments - Pinke

In the 17th century, the word pink or pinke was also used to describe a yellowish pigment, which was mixed with blue colors to yield greenish colors. Thomas Jenner's A Book of Drawing, Limning, Washing (1652) categorizes "Pink & blew bice" amongst the greens (p.  38),[29] and specifies several admixtures of greenish colors made with pink—e.g. "Grasse-green is made of Pink and Bice, it is shadowed with Indigo and Pink … French-green of Pink and Indico [shadowed with] Indico" (pp. 38–40). In William Salmon's Polygraphice (1673), "Pink yellow" is mentioned amongst the chief yellow pigments (p. 96), and the reader is instructed to mix it with either Saffron or Ceruse for "sad" or "light" shades thereof, respectively.

Sonics

Pink in symbolism and world culture

Common associations and popularity

According to public opinion surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most associated with charm, politeness, sensitivity, tenderness, sweetness, softness, childhood, the feminine, and the romantic.[30] Although it did not have any strong negative associations in these surveys, few respondents chose pink as their favorite color. Pink was the favorite color of only two-percent of respondents, compared with forty-five-percent who chose blue.[31] Pink was the least-favorite color of seventeen percent of respondents; the only color more disliked was brown, with twenty percent. There was a notable difference between men and women; three percent of women chose pink as their favorite color, compared with less than one percent of men. Many of the men surveyed were unable to even identify pink correctly, confusing it with mauve. Pink was also more popular with older people than younger; twenty-five percent of women under twenty-five called pink their least favorite color, compared with only eight percent of women over fifty. Twenty-nine percent of men under the age of twenty-five said pink was their least favorite color, compared with eight percent of men over fifty.[32]

Pink in other languages

In most European languages, the color pink is the name of the rose flower; like "Gulabi" "گلابی" in Urdu. rose in French and Dutch; rosa in German, Portuguese, Catalan, Spanish and Italian; rozoviy in Russian; and różowy in Polish. In Latin, they say rosa. In Finnish it is called pinkki.

In the Japanese language, the traditional word for pink, Momo-iro (ももいろ), takes its name from the peach blossom. There is a separate word for the color of the cherry blossom: sakura-iro. In recent times a word based on the English version, Pinku (ピンク), has begun to be used.

In Chinese, the color pink is named with a compound noun 粉紅色, meaning "powder red" where the powder refers to substances used for women's make-up.

Idioms and expressions

Architecture

Early pink buildings were usually built of brick or sandstone, which takes its pale red color from hematite, or iron ore. In the 18th century - the golden age of pink and other pastel colors - pink mansions and churches were built all across Europe. More modern pink buildings usually use the color pink to appear exotic or to attract attention.

Food and beverages

According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most associated with sweet foods and beverages. Pink is also one of the few colors to be strongly associated with a particular aroma, that of roses.[35] Many strawberry and raspberry-flavored foods are colored pink and light red as well, sometimes to distinguish them from cherry-flavored foods that are more commonly colored dark red.

The pink color in most packaged and processed foods, ice creams, candies and pastries is made with artificial food coloring. The most common pink food coloring is erythrosine, also known as Red No. 3, an organoiodine compound, a derivative of fluorone, which is a cherry-pink synthetic.[36] It is usually listed on package labels as E-127. Another common red or pink (particularly in the United States where erythrosine is less frequently used) is Allura Red AC (E-129), also known as Red No. 40. Some products use a natural red or pink food coloring, Cochineal, also called carmine, made with crushed insects of the family Dactylopius coccus.

  1. ^ Reported by Food Channel Editor site, July 30, 2008. Source: the International Ice Cream Association, 888 16th Street, Washington DC.

Gender

In Europe and the United States, pink is often associated with girls, while blue is associated with boys. These colors were first used as gender signifiers just prior to World War I (for either girls or boys), and pink was first established as a female gender signifier in the 1940s.[37][38] In the 20th century, the practice in Europe varied from country to country, with some assigning colors based on the baby's complexion, and others assigning pink sometimes to boys and sometimes to girls.[39]

Many have noted the contrary association of pink with boys in 20th-century America. An article in the trade publication Earnshaw's Infants' Department in June 1918 said:

The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.[40][41][42][43][44]

One reason for the increased use of pink for girls and blue for boys was the invention of new chemical dyes, which meant that children's clothing could be mass-produced and washed in hot water without fading. Prior to this time, most small children of both sexes wore white, which could be frequently washed.[45] Another factor was the popularity of blue and white sailor suits for young boys, a fashion that started in the late 19th century. Blue was also the usual color of school uniforms, for boys and girls. Blue was associated with seriousness and study, while pink was associated with childhood and softness.

By the 1950s, pink was strongly associated with femininity but to an extent that was "neither rigid nor universal" as it later became.[46][47][48]

One study by two neuroscientists in Current Biology examined color preferences across cultures and found significant differences between male and female responses. Both groups favored blues over other hues, but women had more favorable responses to the reddish-purple range of the spectrum and men had more favorable responses to the greenish-yellow end of the spectrum. Despite the fact that the study used adults, and both groups preferred blues, and responses to the color pink were never even tested, the popular press represented the research as an indication of an innate preference by girls for pink. The misreading has been often repeated in market research, reinforcing American culture's association of pink with girls on the basis of imagined innate characteristics.[49]

Toys aimed at girls often display pink prominently on packaging and the toy themselves. In its 1957 catalog, Lionel Trains offered for sale a pink model freight train for girls. The steam locomotive and coal car were pink and the freight cars of the freight train were various pastel colors. The caboose was baby blue. It was a marketing failure because any girl who might want a model train would want a realistically colored train, while boys in the 1950s did not want to be seen playing with a pink train. However, today it is a valuable collector's item.[50]

Sexuality

As noted above, pink combined with black or violet is commonly associated with eroticism and seduction.

Politics

Code Pink is an American women's activist group opposing war and globalization.

Social movements

Pink is often used as a symbolic color by groups involved in issues important to women, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual community.

Academic dress

Heraldry

The word pink is not used for any tincture (color) in heraldry, but there are two fairly uncommon tinctures which are both close to pink:

Calendars

The press

Pink is used for the newsprint paper of several important newspapers devoted to business and sports, and the color is also connected with the press aimed at the gay community.

Since 1893 the London Financial Times newspaper has used a distinctive salmon pink color for its newsprint, originally because pink dyed paper was less expensive than bleached white paper.[62] Today the color is used to distinguish the newspaper from competitors on a press kiosk or news stand. In some countries, the salmon press identifies economic newspapers or economics sections in "white" newspapers. Some sports newspapers, such as La Gazzetta dello Sport in Italy, also use pink paper to stand out from other newspapers. It awards a pink jersey to the winner of Italy's most important bicycle race, the Giro d'Italia. (See #Sports).

Law

Literature

Religion

Sports

In Hunting to hounds, the hunt master always wears 'hunting pink'. However, the jacket is always a bright or crimson red. The traditional red hunting coat called a "pink" derives the name not from the coat's colour but from the name of the late 18th century London tailor who specialized in sewing the popular field coat. The coats made by Thomas Pink were of rain resistant scarlet cloth, tightly woven and durable enough to be immune to thorns and branches` on the chase. A Pink hunting coat was a mark of distinction in the 18th century, implying the wearer was a person of affluence and taste, and today the coat carries much of the same cachet [66]

See also

References

Further reading

Notes and citations

  1. "W3C TR CSS3 Color Module, HTML4 color keywords". W3.org. Retrieved 2010-09-11.
  2. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 5th Edition, Oxford University Press.
  3. Webster New World Dictionary, Third College Edition: "Any of a genus (Dianthus) of annual and perennial plants of the pink family with white, pink or red flowers.; its pale red color."
  4. Heller, Eva: Psychologie de la couleur – effets et symboliques, pp. 179-184
  5. "pink, n.⁵ and adj.²", Oxford English Dictionary Online
  6. Collins Dictionary
  7. The Odyssey, Book XII, translated by Samuel Butler.
  8. "CTCWeb Glossary: R (ratis to ruta)". Ablemedia.com. Retrieved 2010-09-11.
  9. http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG6596 The Madonna of the Pinks on the official National Gallery website
  10. Cennino Cennini, The Craftsman's Handbook - Il Libro dell'Arte, pg. 23-24.
  11. Eva Heller, Psychologie de la couleur, effets et symboliques, pp. 182-83
  12. Eva Heller, Psychologie de la couleur - effets et symboliques, p. 184.
  13. The Pink Triangle: The Nazi War Against Homosexuals (1986) by Richard Plant (New Republic Books). ISBN 0-8050-0600-1.
  14. Smithsonian Magazine
    When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?
    In 1927, Time magazine printed a chart showing sex-appropriate colors for girls and boys according to leading U.S. stores. In Boston, Filene’s told parents to dress boys in pink. So did Best & Co. in New York City, Halle’s in Cleveland and Marshall Field in Chicago.

    Today’s color dictate wasn’t established until the 1940s, as a result of Americans’ preferences as interpreted by manufacturers and retailers. “It could have gone the other way”

  15. Stamberg, Susan (April 1, 2014). "Girls Are Taught To 'Think Pink,' But That Wasn't Always So". npr.org. NPR. Archived from the original on 2014-04-01. Retrieved 2014-09-26. a 1918 trade catalog for children's clothing recommended blue for girls. The reasoning at the time was that it's a 'much more delicate and dainty tone,' Finamore says. Pink was recommended for boys 'because it's a stronger and more passionate color, and because it's actually derived from red.'
  16. "WACK! Exhibition, podcast interview with de Bretteville". MOCA.org. 1940-11-04. Retrieved 2010-09-27.
  17. Goodman, Walter (1987-10-16). "Film: Christo, in 'Islands'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-05.
  18. Nemitz, Barbara; Fuse, Hideto (2006). Pink The Exposed Color in Contemporary Art and Culture. New York: Ostfildern:Hatje Cantz. p. 68.
  19. Nemitz, Barbara. Pink The Exposed Color in Contemporary Art and Culture. Hatje Cantz. p. 69.
  20. "Merriam Webster definition of the color "pink"". merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2011-11-12.
  21. "Pink, a Tint of Red". Landscape-guide.com. Retrieved 2010-09-11.
  22. "For example, pink is a tint of red". Enchantedlearning.com. Retrieved 2010-09-11.
  23. Colors by Hue at MSDN
  24. "Creating Styles in Fireworks". Adobe.com. 2009-07-14. Archived from the original on July 26, 2008. Retrieved 2010-09-11.
  25. Dana Lee Ling. "x11 Colors in Hue Saturation Luminosity order". Comfsm.fm. Retrieved 2010-09-11.
  26. "Color Names". ImageMagick. 2010-01-02. Retrieved 2010-09-11.
  27. K. Saha (2008). The Earth's Atmosphere - Its Physics and Dynamics. Springer. p. 107. ISBN 978-3-540-78426-5.
  28. B. Guenther (ed.) (2005). Encyclopedia of Modern Optics. Vol. 1. Elsevier. p. 186.
  29. Jenner, Thomas (1652). A Book of Drawing, Limning, Washing. London: M. Simmons. p. 38.
  30. Eva Heller, Psychologie de la couleur - effets et symboliques, p. 179-185
  31. Eva Heller, Psychologie de la couleur - effets et symboliques, p. 179.
  32. Eva Heller, Psychologie de la couleur - effets et symboliques, p. 179
  33. Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 4
  34. "Opportunities in the Pink Economy of the United Kingdom" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-09-11.
  35. Eva Heller, Psychologie de la couleur – effets et symboliques
  36. Phyllis A. Lyday "Iodine and Iodine Compounds" in Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, 2005, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim
  37. Jo B. Paoletti, Pink and Blue: Telling the Girls From the Boys in America (Indiana University Press, 2012), 87
  38. Smithsonian, When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?, April 2011
  39. "Is pink for girls or boys?". BBC Radio. 19 December 2009. Retrieved 1 October 2012.
  40. Smithsonian.com: Jeanne Maglaty, "When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?," April 8, 2011, accessed June 4, 2011
  41. Merkin, Daphne. "Gender Trouble", The New York Times Style Magazine, March 12, 2006. Retrieved 10 December 2007.
  42. Orenstein, Peggy. "What's Wrong With Cinderella?", The New York Times Magazine, December 24, 2006, retrieved December 10, 2007. Orenstein writes: "When colors were first introduced to the nursery in the early part of the 20th century, pink was considered the more masculine hue, a pastel version of red. Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness, was thought to be dainty. Why or when that switched is not clear, but as late as the 1930s a significant percentage of adults in one national survey held to that split."
  43. Jude Stewart (2008). "Pink is for Boys: cultural history of the color pink". Step Inside Design Magazine. Archived from the original on 2008-02-28.
  44. Kimmell, Michael. Manhood in America: A Cultural History, 1996, The Free Press. p.158
  45. Eva Heller, Psychologie de la couleur; effets et symboliques.
  46. Paoletti, 92
  47. Ben Goldacre (2007-08-25). "Bad Science". Out of the Blue and into the Pink (London).
  48. Zucker, Kenneth J. and Bradley, Susan J. (1995). Gender Identity Disorder and Psychosexual Problems in Children and Adolescents. Guilford Press. p. 203. ISBN 0-89862-266-2.
  49. Paoletti, 97-8
  50. "Lionel's 1957 pink train for girls:". Lionel-train-set.com. Retrieved 2012-12-07.
  51. "What does pink mean? pink Definition". Retrieved 2012-10-29.
  52. "Gay in Russia". Gaylife. Retrieved September 5, 2012.
  53. "Pink thrills: Japanese sex movies go global | The Japan Times Online". Search.japantimes.co.jp. 2008-12-04. Retrieved 2010-08-16.
  54. "Why is the British Empire coloured pink on maps?". Royal Museums Greenwhich.
  55. "Website of Pink magazine:". Pinkmag.com. Retrieved 2010-09-11.
  56. http://irishpinkadoptions.com
  57. Katy Guest (18 December 2011). "Girls will be girls: The battle for our children's hearts and minds this Christmas". The Independent (London). Retrieved 13 April 2013.
  58. Susanna Rustin (21 April 2012). "Why girls aren't pretty in pink". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 13 April 2013.
  59. Harry Wallop (30 November 2009). "Pink toys 'damaging' for girls". Daily Telegraph (London). Retrieved 13 April 2013.
  60. "Pink Pistols website:". Pinkpistols.org. 2001-03-08. Retrieved 2010-09-11.
  61. Fernandez, Sandy (June–July 1998). "Pretty in Pink". Archived from the original on 2009-08-15. Retrieved 28 May 2013.
  62. Cited by Stephen Fidler of the Wall Street Journal, formerly a correspondent for the Financial Times.
  63. O'Riordain, Aoife (1998-10-03). "The evidence: The barrister's desk". The Independent (London).
  64. As he moves out of the darkness, a pink ribbon blows down next to him and he sees that Faith is part of the "communion" that is taking place in the woods.
  65. "Controversy regarding pink University of Iowa locker room:". Sports.espn.go.com. 2005-09-28. Retrieved 2010-09-11.
  66. Mess Dress http://www.messdress-britishmilitaria.com/New/new_pinks.html

External links

Look up in the pink in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.