Properties
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 on the line of purples, but most people associate the term "''purple''" with a somewhat
bluer shade. 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.
Purple versus violet
color|
title | Violet|textcolor |
The
color terms
purple and
violet cause confusion for many people, and they are often used interchangeably in casual conversation. Technically, purple when used as a general term in its most general sense is the name of the color group of many related colors such as
violet,
red-violet,
heliotrope,
lavender,
mauve,
magenta,
rose,
indigo and
lilac.
Indigo is a blue-purple; lilac is a light purple; mauve is between the two.
''Violet'' is a
spectral color of a (approximately 420–380nm) shorter wavelength than
blue, while purple is a combination of
red and
blue light. The purples are colors on the
color wheel that are not
spectral colors – ''purples'' are ''extraspectral color''. In fact, purple was not present on
Newton's color wheel (which went directly from violet to red), though it is present on modern ones. There is no such thing as the "wavelength of purple light"; it only exists as a combination. Also, violet light varies solely by wavelength, while purple varies by the proportion of red to blue light.On the
CIE xy chromaticity diagram, violet is on the curved edge in the lower left, while purples are the straight line connecting the extreme colors red and violet.
One interesting
psychophysical feature of the two colors which 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. The same increase in blueness is not noted in purples.
Violet cannot be reproduced by a Red-Green-Blue (RGB) color system, and must be simulated by a mixture of red and blue (purple). The shade of violet simulated in the color box above is halfway between
magenta and
blue on the
color wheel.
Historical development of purple
The color regarded as the standard for purple changed over the years, from ''Tyrian Purple'' in ancient times to ''Electric Purple'' today.
Royal Purple: Medieval Europe
| color |textcolor | white|
title |
| hex | 6B3FA0|
r |
This shade of ''purple'' is bluer than the ancient Tyrian purple.
In
medieval Europe,
blue dyes were rare and expensive
[ Varichon, Anne ''Colors:What They Mean and How to Make Them'' New York:2006 Abrams Page 161 ], so only the most wealthy or the
aristocracy could afford to wear them. (The
working class wore mainly
green and
brown.) Because of this (and also because Tyrian purple had gone out of use in western Europe after the collapse of the
Western Roman Empire in AD
476), Europeans' idea of purple shifted towards this more bluish purple known as
royal purple because of its similarity to the
royal blue worn by the aristocracy. This was the shade of purple worn by
kings in medieval Europe.
Artists Pigment Purple (Red-Violet) (web color Medium Violet Red): 1930s
color|
textcolor | white|
title |
Royal purple or generic purple is the common layman's idea of purple, but professional
artists, following
Munsell color system (introduced in
1905 and widely accepted by
1930), regard purple as being synonymous with the
red-violet color shown at right, in order to clearly distinguish purple from
violet and thus have access to a larger palette of colors. This
red-violet color, called '''artist's purple''' by artists, is the pigment color that would be on a pigment color
color wheel between pigment
violet and pigment (process)
magenta. In the Munsell color system, this color at the maximum chroma of 12 is called ''Red-Purple''.
Artists pigments and colored
pencils labeled as ''purple'' are colored the ''red-violet'' color shown at right.
It seems appropriate that this color should be called "purple" by artists, since it is the closest of all the purples to the original Tyrian purple.
Computer web color purples
Purple (HTML/CSS color)
| color |textcolor | white|
title |
| hex | 800080|
r |
This ''purple'' used in
HTML and
CSS actually is deeper and has a more reddish hue (#800080) than the
X11 color purple shown below as ''purple'' (X11 color) (#A020F0), which is bluer and brighter.
This color may be called
HTML/CSS purple.
Purple (X11 color)
| color|textcolor | white|
title |
At right is displayed the color ''purple'', as defined in the
X11 color, which is a lot brighter and bluer than the
HTML purple shown above.
See the chart
Color names that clash between X11 and HTML/CSS in the X11 color names article to see those colors which are different in HTML and X11.
This color can be called
X11 purple.
Medium Purple (X11)
color|
title | Medium Purple|textcolor |
Displayed at right is the web color
medium purple.
This color is a medium shade of the bright ''X11 purple'' shown above.
Additional variations of purple
Orchid
The color
orchid is a light shade of purple.
The name
orchid originates from the flowers of some species of the vast
orchid flower family, such as ''Laelia furfuracea'' and ''Ascocentrum pusillum'', which have petals of this color.
Psychedelic Purple
| color|textcolor | white|
title |
| h | 290|s |
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. This shade of purple was very popular among the
hippies and it was the favorite color of
Jimi Hendrix and therefore it is called
psychedelic purple. It is shaded somewhat more toward the magenta than electric purple and it is displayed in the color box at right.
In the
1980s there was a ''Jimi Hendrix Museum'' in a
Victorian house on the east side of Central Ave. one half block south of Haight Street in the
Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of
San Francisco which was painted this color.
Mulberry
| color |textcolor | white|
title |
The color
mulberry is displayed at right.
This color is a representation of the color of
mulberry jam or
pie.
This was a
Crayola crayon color from
1958 to
2003.
The first recorded use of ''Mulberry'' as a color name in
English was in
1776.
[ Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 199; Color Sample of Mulberry: Page 119 Plate 48 Color Sample E9]
Pansy Purple
| color|textcolor | white|
title |
| h | 287|s |
The
pansy flower has varieties that exhibit three different colors: pansy (a deep shade of violet), pansy pink, and
pansy purple.
The first recorded use of ''Pansy Purple'' as a color name in
English was in
1814.
[ 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 ]
Tokyo Purple
| color|textcolor | white|
title |
is the color of the
flag of the
prefecture of
Tokyo in the
Kantō region of
Japan. The color purple has been associated with Tokyo (formerly called Edo) since ancient times.
Purple in human culture
One of the stars in the Pleiades, called Pleione, is sometimes called ''Purple Pleione'' because, being a fast spinning star, it has a purple hue caused by its blue-white color being obscured by a spinning ring of electrically excited red hydrogen gas. [ Barnett, Lincoln and the editorial staff of Life ''The World We Live In'' New York:1955--Simon and Schuster--Page 284]
Purple is the color of the ball in Snooker Plus with a 10-point value.
Purple is associated with Saturday on the Thai solar calendar. Anyone may wear purple on Saturdays and anyone born on a Saturday may adopt purple as their color.
When sensimilla marijuana first became available in the early 1970s, it was called ''purple seedless''. [ Phillips, Julia ''You’ll Never Eat Lunch in this Town Again'' (The Truth About Hollywood) New York:1991 Random House Page 371 ]
''porpora'' or ''purpure'' was not one of the usual tinctures in European heraldry, being added at a late date to bring the number of tinctures plus metals to seven, so that they could be given planetary associations. The classic early example of purpure is in the coat of arms of the Kingdom of León: ''argent, a lion purpure'' as early as 1245.
Purple has often symbolized royalty, dating back to Roman times, when clothing dyed with Tyrian purple was limited to the upper classes due to the rarity (and thus price) of the dye. The color, which was closer to a deep crimson/red-violet color (shown above) than to the modern idea of purple, was the favored color of many kings and queens.
Byzantine empresses gave birth in the Purple Chamber of the palace of the Byzantine Emperors. Therefore, being named ''Porphyrogenitus'' ("born to the purple") marked a dynastic emperor as opposed to a general who won the throne by his effort.
In China, the Chinese name of the Forbidden City literally means "purple forbidden city" 紫禁城 with first character 紫 meaning purple (even though the Chinese Emperor himself wore yellow, which was considered in China to be the imperial color).
Alice Walker, author of ''The Color Purple,'' said, "Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender."
As a result of its association with royalty and luxury, the term ''purple'' is often used to describe pretentious or overly embellished literature. For example, a paragraph containing an excessive number of long and unusual words is called a purple passage (see Purple prose).
In the United States and United Kingdom militaries, ''purple'' refers to programs or assignments that are "joint", i. e., that are not confined to a single service such as the Army or Navy, but apply to the entire defense establishment. Assignment to one or more joint billets is required for promotion to flag rank (Rear Admiral and higher) in the U.S. Navy. Officers in joint billets are sometimes referred to as "wearing purple" (the phrase is purely metaphorical as there are no purple uniforms in the U.S. or UK armed forces).
During and before World War II, the Japanese used a code known as PURPLE or the Purple Code. The Allies' military successes in the Pacific theater depended on the fact that the Japanese did not know that Allied cryptographers had broken the code.
In politics in the Netherlands, purple (Paars in Dutch) means a government coalition of right-liberals and socialists (symbolized by blue and red, respectively), as opposed to the more common coalitions of the Christian center-party with one of the other two. From 1994 to 2002 there have been two purple cabinets.
In United States politics, a ''purple state'' is a state equally balanced between Republicans (normally symbolized by red) and Democrats (normally symbolized as blue).
In Latin Christianity purple is the liturgical color for the seasons of Advent and Lent.
Robert Burns rhymes purple with "curple" in his Epistle to Mrs. Scott. Burns is, as far as we can tell, the only writer to have used the word. A curple refers to 1) the small of the waist before the flare of the hips or 2) a derriere, rump or behind.
In the song Grace Kelly by Mika the word purple is rhymed with "hurtful".
In his hit song "Dang Me," Roger Miller sings these lines:
::''
Roses are
red,
violets are purple
::''
Sugar is sweet and so is
maple surple ''
sic''
In the Byzantine Empire, Gospel manuscripts were written in gold lettering on parchment that was colored Tyrian purple. [ 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. ]
At the 24 June 2007 San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, Yahoo passed out 3 7/16" in diameter round plastic stickers with a picture of a gay man or woman imaged as one of the Yahoo Gay Pride avatars against an HTML/CSS Purple background that said ''Out, Proud, and Purple''. [Yahoo Gay Pride Avatars: ]
In the mid 1970s, there was a gay piano bar at 2223 Market St. between Noe and Castro in San Francisco called the ''Purple Pickle''. [ ''San Francisco Frontiers Gay Newsmagazine'' Volume 15, Issue 4 June 20, 1996 Gay Pride Issue Pages 38-39 ''Can You Remember When?'' ''The List'' --List of Every Gay Bar that Ever Existed in San Francisco]
In 1976, a chart by Timothy Leary and Robert Anton Wilson called ''The Periodic Table of Energy'' outlining the philosophy of Dr. Timothy Leary (The Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness)[ ''Leary’s 8 Calibre Brain'' Psychic Magazine April 1976 ]was given out by the ''Starflight Network'', a group in Berkeley, California that was founded by Robert Anton Wilson to promulgate Dr. Timothy Leary's philosophy. The Eighth or ''Psycho-Atomic'' Circuit was represented on the chart by the color ''psychedelic purple''. [ 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 ]
In the MMORPG PC video game World of Warcraft, items of an "Epic" quality (extremely rare items) are the color purple, and are often referred to as "Purples" on certain game realms.
References
Further reading
"The perception of color", from Schiffman, H.R. (1990) ''Sensation and perception: An integrated approach'' (3rd edition). New York: John Wiley & Sons.