purple

For other uses, see Purple (disambiguation).

The term Purple has always been used in a general sense in English by the average person to describe a wide variety of shades within a range of colors intermediate between blue and red.

The term purple is also used in a more specialized and restricted sense by chromaticians (color scientists) to indicate those colors between violet and red which are not spectral colors but mixtures of red and blue light. These colors are those colors which are along what is called the purple boundary (a straight line between violet and red) on the CIE chromaticity diagram.

The term purple may also be used specifically to describe one of the six specific shades of purple displayed below: violet, imperial purple, royal purple, generic purple, artist's purple, electric purple or psychedelic purple.

Etymology

The word purple comes from the Middle English word purple which originates from the Latin purpura which in turn is derived from the (Koine Greek: πορφυρα, porphura), the name of the dye manufactured in Classical antiquity from the mucus-secretion of the hypobranchial gland of a marine snail known as the Murex brandaris or the spiny dye-murex.

The first recorded use of the word purpel in English was in the year AD 975.^[1]

Purple on the CIE Chromaticity Diagram

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. (see below section).

Purple versus violet

The color terms purple and violet cause confusion for many people: they are used interchangeably by some people in casual conversation. Technically, purple when used as a general term is the name of the colour group of many related colors such as violet, red-violet, heliotrope, lavender, mauve, magenta, indigo and lilac. Indigo is a blue-purple; lilac is a light purple; mauve is in between the two. Crayola crayons have many shades of purple; see List of Crayola crayon colors.

Violet is a spectral color (of approximately 420–380nm) shorter wavelength than blue, while purple is a combination of red and blue light and when regarded as red-violet, it is the only color on the color wheel besides magenta and crimson that is not a spectral 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.

The shade of violet shown in the color box is exactly halfway between magenta and blue on the color wheel.

Imperial Purple (Tyrian Purple)

The actual color of Tyrian purple, the orginal color purple from which the name purple is derived, is the color of a dye made from a mollusk that, because of its incredible expense (many times more expensive than gold), in classical antiquity became a symbol of royalty because only the very wealthy could afford it. Therefore, Tyrian purple is also called imperial purple.

Tyrian purple may have been discovered as early as the time of the Minoan civilization. Alexander the Great (when giving imperial audiences as the emperor of the Macedonian Empire), the emperors of the Seleucid Empire, and the kings of Ptolemaic Egypt wore Tyrian purple. The imperial robes of Roman emperors were Tyrian purple trimmed in metallic gold thread. Tyrian purple was continued in use by the emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire until the final collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 (the Eastern Roman Empire is customarily referred to by historians as the Byzantine Empire after 610, when the official language was changed from Latin to Greek).

"Tyrian purple" is a deep shade of medium-dark red-violet as displayed in the box at right and in the background of the website "Purple," which gives additional information about Tyrian Purple: [1]

Royal Purple (Web color Purple)

The purple used in HTML and CSS actually has a more bluish hue (#800080)than the ancient Tyrian purple, as can be seen in the sample of the web color "Purple" to the right.

In medieval Europe, blue dyes were rare and expensive, so only 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 West Roman Empire in AD 476), Europeans' idea of purple shifted towards the more blue 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.

In contemporary times, this shade of purple has been popularized by the rock celebrity Prince. His fans call him "His Purple Majesty" and "His Royal Badness" ("bad" being used ironically to mean that Prince is the greatest of all).

This shade of purple is very popular among African Americans in fashion and interior design, as well as for painting the exteriors of homes.

Generic Purple (Vulgar Purple)

In 1923, the Welch's company began manufacturing Concord grape jelly. Since for both children and the working class a common food was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, many people began to think of the dark violet color of grape jelly as purple because that was the most likely way they would encounter the color purple. This shade of purple is known as generic purple. Sometimes it is called vulgar purple.

Artists Pigment Purple (Red-Violet)

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 the color wheel between pigment violet and pigment magenta.

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.

Electric Purple

Since using personal computers (first introduced in 1976 by Apple Computer, Inc.), it is possible to create a much brighter purple than with pigment, the equivalent color on a computer to the pigment color red-violet shown above would be electric purple, i.e. the much brighter purple you can see reproduced on the screen of an electronic computer. This color is pure purple conceived as computer artists conceive it, as the pure chroma on the computer screen color wheel halfway between electric violet and electric magenta. The color electric purple is displayed in the box at right.

Psychedlic Purple

The pure essence of purple was approximated in pigment in the late 1960s by mixing fluorescent magenta and fluorescent blue pigments together to paint 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.

Some People Can See Electric Purple on the Spectrum

Ophthalmologists report that those who, for medical reasons, have had their retinal lenses removed and replaced with clear plastic can see into the ultraviolet and view electric purple on the spectrum beyond violet because it has been shown that the retina has some ultraviolet sensitivity which is normally blocked by the retinal lens.^{citation needed]}

Purple in Human Culture

• Purple has oftentimes 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 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.

• 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 the Kingdom of León: argent, a lion purpure as early as 1245.

• In China, the Chinese name of the Forbidden City literally means "purple forbidden city" (even though the Chinese Emperor himself wore yellow, which was considered in China to be the imperial color).

• 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).
• As a result of its association with the Roman Empire, imperial is often used to mean purple, such as "imperial dye."
• Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, said, "Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender."
• 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).
• Purple is also one of the liturgical colors in Christian symbolism, although the liturgical color is more properly called violet. It generally represents sorrow and mourning, as it is often associated with the season of Lent (the forty or so days before Easter and the death of Jesus). Purple vestments are also worn by priests during the sacrament of reconciliation; it is therefore associated with penance and forgiveness.
• Purple is the official color of the Unicorn Club.
• 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 equallly balanced between Republicans (normally symbolized by red) and Democrats (normally symbolized as blue).
• Purple People Eater was one of the biggest rock and roll hits of 1958.[2]
• Purple Haze is one of the most popular songs by Jimi Hendrix.
• Purple is the favorite color of the rock celebrity Prince. His film and album Purple Rain is one of his best known works. Prince encourages his fans to wear purple to his concerts.
• Purple is generally used to denote a digital video signal in broadcast engineering.
• Purple is the color of the ball in Snooker Plus with a 10-point value.

See also

• List of colors
• Purpure

References

1. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 202

Further Reading

• "The perception of color", from Schiffman, H.R. (1990) Sensation and perception: An integrated approach (3rd edition). New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Notes

1. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 202

External links

• All About Purple
• Purple