Purple

Related Topics:
Purple_Rain :: Purple_Storm :: Purple_Butterfly :: Purple_Rose_of_Cairo,_The :: Purple_Martins

This is an article about the color purple: Purple is any shade within a group of colors intermediate between deep blue and red.

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. There is some common confusion between the color names purple and violet, but only purple can come in haze. Purple is a mixture of red and blue, 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 in some casual conversation. Technically, purple is the name of the colour group of many related colors such as violet, mauve, magenta, indigo and lilac. Indigo is a blue-purple, lilac is a light purple, and mauve is in between the two.

Violet is a spectral color (of approximately 420-380nm), shorter wavelength than blue, while purple is a combination of red and blue and is the only color on the color wheel that is not a spectral color (there is no such thing as the "wavelength of purple light," it only exists as a combination). Purple was not present on Newton's color wheel (which went directly from violet to red), but is present on modern ones.

Violet light varies solely by wavelength, while purple varies by the proportion of red to blue.

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 bluey hue as a result of what is known as the Bezold-Brücke shift. The same increase in blueness is not noted in purples.

Web color

The purple used in HTML and CSS is actually a redder purple (#800080), as seen in the sample to the right.

Symbolism and trivia

Purple sometimes symbolizes 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 colour, which was closer to crimson than our idea of purple, was the favored colour of many kings and queens. Byzantine empresses gave birth in the Purple Chamber of the palace of the Byzantine Emperors. Thus being named Porphyrogenitus ("born to the purple") marked a dynastic emperor as opposed to a general who won the throne by his effort. Oddly, 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".
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 Colour Purple, said "Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender."
Purple is the colour (though less commonly used and known as) generally associated with homosexuality and homosexuals.
In the United States and United Kingdom militaries, purple refers to programs or assignments that are "joint", i.e. 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 as one of the liturgical colours in Christian symbolism can express sorrow and mourning.
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 1994–2002 there have been two purple cabinets.
Purple is generally used to denote a Digital Video Signal in Broadcast Engineering.
Purple is the colour of the ball in Snooker Plus with a 10-point value.
In most RPGs, purple is the colour of poison. A notable exception is the Pokémon universe, where purple denotes psychic abilities.

From the Latin purpureus, "very, very holy," or sacre, or taboo. The ancients' "royal purple" was not purple but a dark wine red, the colour of blood, especially the menstrual blood formerly considered the very stuff of life. Royal purple meant the same as royal blood: matrilineal kinship in a sacred clan. Some legends said royal purple descended from Athene's "goatskin dyed red," the aegis of sovereignty. The purple robe of a Roman emperor was saidto have been "coloured by blood." Purple still meant blood colour in the time of Shakespeare, who spoke of the "purpled hands" of Ceasar's assassins, stained with "the most noble blood of all the world."
When Mark's Gospel says Jesus' robe was purple (15:17) and Matthew's Gospel says it was scarlet(27:28) they are really talking about the conbentional sacred-king robe, called lamhussu. It was the same sacred blood colour that covered altars in Canaan and Israel (numbers 4), and dyed the "red carpet" trod by triumphal religious processions.
Blood purple was sacred to the pagans, as suggested by the First book of Adam and Eve, which says the art of dyeing crimson and purple was invented by Satan.
Actually, the art was invented by the Phoenicians, who obtained deep blood red dye from mollusks of the family Muricidae. These sea snails were the source of the famous "Tyrian purple" worn by royalty. In roman society, people who below imperial rank were allowed to wear stripes or borders of the holy colour on their togas, in smaller widths according to a descending scale of status.

Walker, G. Barbra. The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.,(1983)New york, New york.

References

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

Notes