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Purple

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Purple
— Common connotations —
royalty, imperialism, nobility, Easter, Mardi Gras, upper class, poison, friendship, sharing, wisdom, homosexuality, and sympathy
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#800080
sRGBB	(r, g, b)	(128, 0, 128)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(300°, 100%, 50%)
Source		HTML/CSS
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

A purple plasma ball.

Purple is a general term used in English for the range of shades of color occurring between red and blue. In additive light combinations it occurs by mixing the primary colors red and blue in varying proportions. In subtractive pigments it can be equal to the primary color magenta or be formed by mixing magenta with the colors red or blue, or by mixing just the latter two, in which case a color of low saturation will result. Low saturation will also be caused by adding a certain quantity of the third primary color (green for light or yellow for pigment). There is a disagreement over exactly which shades can be described as purple, some people preferring more precise terms such as magenta or heliotrope for particular shades. A difference in retinal sensitivity to red and blue light between individuals can cause further disagreement.

In color theory, a "purple" is defined as any non-spectral color between violet and red (excluding violet and red themselves). The spectral colors violet and indigo are not purples according to color theory but they are purples according to common English usage since they are between red and blue.

In art, purple is the color on the color wheel between magenta and violet and its tints and shades. This color, electric purple, is shown below.

In human color psychology, purple is also associated with royalty and nobility (stemming from classical antiquity when Tyrian Purple was only affordable to the elites).

Etymology and definitions

Murex brandaris or spiny dye-murex

The word 'purple' comes from the Old English word purpul which originates from the Latin purpura. This in turn is derived from the Koine Greek πορφύρα (porphyra), name of the Tyrian purple dye manufactured in classical antiquity from a mucus secreted by the spiny dye-murex snail.

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

Purple versus violet

Violet
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#8F00FF
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(143, 0, 255)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(274°, 100%, 100%)
Source		HTML Color Chart @274
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

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. 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.

The CIE xy chromaticity diagram

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; this line is known as the line of purples, or the purple line.

One interesting 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. The same increase in blueness is not noted in purples.

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.

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.

Historical development of purple

Tyrian purple: Classical antiquity

Tyrian Purple
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#66023C
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(102, 2, 60)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(329°, 98%, 40%)
Source		Internet
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

Byzantine Emperor Justinian I clad in Tyrian purple, 6th-century mosaic at Basilica of San Vitale

The actual color of Tyrian purple, the original color purple from which the name purple is derived, is the color of a dye made from a mollusc that in classical antiquity became a symbol of royalty because only the very wealthy could afford it. Therefore, Tyrian purple was 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. The badge of office of a Roman Senator was a stripe of Tyrian purple on their white toga. Tyrian purple was continued in use by the emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire until its final collapse in 1453.

Han purple: Ancient China

Han Purple
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#5218FA
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(82, 24, 250)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(260°, 97%, 47%)
Source		Internet
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

Han purple is a type of artificial pigment found in China between 500 BC and AD 220. It was used in the decoration of the Xian Terracotta Army.

The graduated colors of crocus cultivars can appear as han purple in direct sunlight.

Royal purple: Medieval Europe

Royal Purple
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#6B3FA0
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(107, 63, 160)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(273°, 62%, 54%)
Source		Crayola
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

This shade of purple is bluer than the ancient Tyrian purple.

In medieval Europe, blue dyes were rare and expensive, 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): 1930s

Medium violet red
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#C71585
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(199, 21, 133)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(322°, 89%, 78%)
Source		X11
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

'Royal purple' (shown above) or the dark violet color known as vulgar 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.

Electric purple: 2000s

Electric Purple
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#BF00FF
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(191, 0, 255)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(285°, 100%, 80%)
Source		Colour Lovers
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

This color, electric purple, is precisely halfway between violet and magenta and thus fits the artistic definition of purple.

Using additive colors such as those on computer screens, it is possible to create a much brighter purple than with pigments where the mixing subtracts frequencies from the component primary colors. The equivalent color on a computer to the pigment color red-violet shown above would be this 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. Thus, electric purple is the purest and brightest purple that it is possible to display on a computer screen.

Computer web color purples

Purple (HTML/CSS color)

Purple (HTML/CSS color)
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#800080
sRGBB	(r, g, b)	(128, 0, 128)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(300°, 100%, 50.2%)
Source		HTML/CSS
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

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)

Purple (X11 color)
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#A020F0
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(160, 32, 240)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(276.92°, 86.67%, 94.12%)
Source		X11
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

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)

Medium Purple
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#9370DB
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(147, 112, 219)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(270°, 68%, 72%)
Source		X11
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

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

Cattleya labiata

Orchid
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#DA70D6
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(218, 112, 214)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(302°, 49%, 85%)
Source		X11
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

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.

Heliotrope

Heliotropium arborescens

Heliotrope
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#DF73FF
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(223, 115, 255)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(286°, 55%, 100%)
Source		[Unsourced]
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

The color heliotrope is a brilliant shade of purple.

Heliotrope is a pink-purple tint that is a representation of the color of the heliotrope flower.

Psychedelic purple

Psychedelic purple
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#DD00FF
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(221, 0, 255)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(290°, 100%, 92%)
Source		Colour Lovers
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

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 hippies and was the favorite color of Jimi Hendrix. Thus it is called psychedelic purple. It is shaded somewhat more toward the magenta than electric purple.

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

Mulberry
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#C54B8C
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(197, 75, 140)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(285°, 67%, 70%)
Source		Crayola
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

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.

Pansy purple

Pansy Purple
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#78184A
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(120, 24, 74)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(287°, 36%, 27%)
Source		ISCC-NBS
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

Purple Pansy

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.

Purple in nature

Plants

• Purple needlegrass is the state grass of California.

Animals

• The purple frog is a new species of amphibian discovered in India in 2003.
• Purple Honeycreeper

Purple in human culture

Academic Dress

• In the French academic dress system, the five traditional fields of study (Arts, Science, Medicine, Law and Divinity) are each symbolized by a distinctive color, which appears in the academic dress of the people who graduated in this field. Purple (usually a hue close to Royal Purple) is the distinctive color for Divinity. It is also worn by high academic officials (University President, Head of Faculty, Rector, etc.) regardless of the field in which they graduated.

Anti-apartheid movement

• The Purple Rain Protest was a protest against apartheid that took place in Cape Town, South Africa on September 2, 1989, in which a police water cannon with purple dye sprayed thousands of demonstrators. This led to the slogan The purple shall govern.

Astronomy

• 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.

Billiard games

• Purple is the color of the ball in Snooker Plus with a 10-point value.
• In the game of pool, purple is the color of the 4-solid and the 12-striped balls.

Calendars

• 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.

Comedy

• The Purple Onion is a celebrated comedy club in the North Beach area of San Francisco, California.

Cultural Associations

• In Japan, purple is known as the color of death.

Dance

• The Purple Moon Dance Project is a dance group in San Francisco.

Geography

• Purple Mountain is located on the eastern side of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China. Its peaks are often found enveloped in mysterious purple clouds at dawn and dusk, hence comes its name "Purple Mountain".

Heraldry

Coat of arms of the Kingdom of León

• Porpora, or purpure, was not one of the usual tinctures in European heraldry, being added at a late date to bring the number of colors 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.

History

• 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).

Holocaust

• The purple triangle was a Nazi concentration camp badge used by the Nazis to identify several un-orthodox non-conformist religious groups known as Bibelforscher, mostly Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Literature

• 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).

Microbiology

• In April 2007 it was suggested that early archaea may have used retinal, a purple pigment, instead of chlorophyll, to extract energy from the sun. If so, large areas of the ocean and shoreline would have been colored purple; this is called the Purple Earth hypothesis.

Military

• In the US 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. armed forces 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.
• The Purple Heart is a US military decoration awarded in the name of the President of the USA to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after April 5, 1917 with the U.S. military.

Mourning

• In 16th century England, purple was the color for the final stage of mourning, according to Mark Twain in his first attempt at historical fiction, "The Prince and the Pauper".

Music

• Deep Purple is a popular rock band.
• "Deep Purple" (song) is also the name of a popular song that was the favorite song of Babe Ruth.
• Purple are a British tribute band to Deep Purple.
• The Mulberry Purple is a popular Modern Rock band.
• "Purple People Eater" was one of the biggest rock and roll hits of 1958.
• "Purple Haze" is one of the most popular songs by Jimi Hendrix.
• "Tha Purple" is a song performed by the duo Pablo and Victor.
• Purple is the favorite color of the pop celebrity Prince. His 1984 film and album Purple Rain is one of his best known works. The title track is Prince's signature song and is nearly always played in concert to this day. Prince encourages his fans to wear purple to his concerts.
• "Start Wearing Purple" is a song by Gogol Bordello.
• Purple Ribbon Records is a hip-hop record label owned by rapper Big Boi of the rap duo Outkast. 2005 saw the release of the mixtape Got Purp? Vol 2 featuring the Purple Ribbon All-Stars and other artists on the label. In this case, purple refers to a particular quality of marijuana.
• Purple is a 1994 album by the band Stone Temple Pilots.
• Purple is also the name of a track by rap artist Nas.
• Purple Music, Inc is a company in Switzerland that produces house music.
• The New Riders of the Purple Sage is an American country rock band. The group emerged from the psychedelic rock scene in San Francisco in 1969, and its original lineup included members of the Grateful Dead.
• "The Purple Bottle" is a song by Animal Collective.

Parapsychology

• People with purple auras are said to have a love of ritual and ceremony.

People

• There is a woman named Barbara Meislen in Tiburon, California who is called The Purple Lady.

• Singer Prince is often referred to as 'The Purple One', or 'His Royal Purpleness' by fans and the media alike. He starred in a film called Purple Rain and released a single entitled Purple Rain from his Purple Rain album, one of the best selling albums of all time. There are also various references to the color purple in Prince songs and media.

Politics

• In British politics, purple is used to represent the United Kingdom Independence Party, a eurosceptic party wanting to pull Britain out of the European Union.
• In the politics of 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-democratic 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 (currently symbolized by red) and Democrats (currently symbolized as blue)

see:red states and blue states.

Religious text

• In the Byzantine Empire, Gospel manuscripts were written in gold lettering on parchment that was colored Tyrian purple.

Rhyme

• Few, if any words used in modern English rhyme with the word "purple."
• 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]

Science fiction

• In the Star Trek universe, Klingons have purple blood.
• In Star Wars the character Mace Windu is the only character with a purple lightsaber.

Sexuality

• Today the color purple is no longer known as a "pride" color among the gay and BDSM community.
• 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.
• 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.
• The purple hand is an LGBT symbol that derives from an incident which occurred on Halloween night (31 October), 1969, when sixty members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the Society for Individual Rights (SIR) staged a protest at the San Francisco Examiner in response to a series of news articles disparaging LGBT people in San Francisco's gay bars and clubs.

Sports

• The National Basketball Association's Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings use purple as their primary color, though the Lakers formerly used the term "Forum Blue", in reference to their old arena The Forum. The National Hockey League's Los Angeles Kings use purple as one of their primary colors. In Major League Baseball, purple is one of the primary colors for the Colorado Rockies. In the National Football League, the Minnesota Vikings and Baltimore Ravens use purple as main colors. The Australian Football League's Fremantle Football Club use purple as one of their primary colors. In Association football (soccer) Italian Serie A club Fiorentina and Australian A-League Club Perth Glory both use purple as one of their primary colors. Melbourne Storm from Australia's National Rugby League use purple as one of their primary colors. In the NCAA, the Kansas State Wildcats, TCU Horned Frogs, Niagara University Purple Eagles and Northwestern Wildcats feature purple as their primary team color. The University of Washington Huskies, LSU Tigers and James Madison Dukes primary team colors are purple and gold. Royal Purple is also one of the official colors of East Carolina University. Also in the world of college football, purple is the primary team color on the University of Evansville Purple Aces.

Transpersonal psychology

• 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) 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.

Transportation planning

• The MBTA Commuter Rail in Boston is designated with purple markings, and thus is sometimes called the Purple Line.
• The LACMTA Purple Line is a subway that goes down part of Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles that it has been proposed be extended all the way down Wilshire Boulevard to the Pacific Ocean.
• The Chicago Transit Authority's "L" line to Linden Street is known as the Purple Line.
• The Flushing Local/Express (often called the 7 train) of the New York City Subway is designated by a purple circle behind the train number. It is the only numbered train in the New York City subway system that does not share its color with any other train line.
• San Francisco’s light rail service, the Muni Metro, designates the L Taraval light rail line, which travels to the Parkside neighborhood, with a solid purple disc on which is inscribed the train letter in white.
• The Tokyo Metro Hanzōmon Line is color-coded purple on maps, signage and rolling stock.

See also

• List of colors
• Purpure
• Violet (color)

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.

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