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Purple
Purple first appeared in prehistoric art during the Neolithic era, where artists in the Pech Merle cave used sticks of manganese and hematite powder to paint animals and hand outlines between 16,000 and 25,000 BC. Yet the color that would come to define power for millennia was not found in the earth but harvested from the sea. As early as the 15th century BC, the citizens of Sidon and Tyre in Ancient Phoenicia began producing a dye from the spiny dye-murex snail. The process was so labor-intensive that thousands of tiny snails had to be found, their shells cracked, and a tiny gland removed to extract the juice. This juice sat in a basin under the sun, undergoing a remarkable transformation from white to yellow-green, then green, then violet, and finally a red that darkened into the color of dried blood. The dye had to be stopped at the exact right moment to achieve the desired hue, which ranged from bright crimson to deep purple. Mountains of empty shells have been found at ancient sites, testifying to the scale of production required to color even a single garment. This Tyrian purple became the color of kings, nobles, priests, and magistrates across the Mediterranean, so expensive that in the late Roman Empire, the sale of purple cloth became a state monopoly protected by the death penalty. The Roman writer Vitruvius noted that shells from northern waters produced a bluish color while those from the south produced a redder one, but the true value lay not in the specific shade but in the luster, richness, and resistance to weather and light. In 2008, German chemist Paul Friedlander needed twelve thousand mollusks to create just 1.4 ounces of dye, enough to color a handkerchief, proving that the cost of this ancient color remains astronomical even today.
The Imperial Robe
In Ancient Rome, the Toga praetexta was an ordinary white toga with a broad purple stripe on its border, worn by freeborn Roman boys, curule magistrates, and certain priests. The Toga picta, however, was solid purple and embroidered with gold, worn by generals in their triumphs and later by the emperor on special occasions. During the Roman Republic, a general honored in a triumph wore an entirely purple toga bordered in gold, and Roman Senators wore a toga with a purple stripe. However, during the Roman Empire, purple became associated exclusively with the emperors and their officers. Suetonius claims that the early emperor Caligula had the King of Mauretania murdered for the splendour of his purple cloak, and that Nero forbade the use of certain purple dyes. The color became so sacred that in the Byzantine Empire, empresses gave birth in the Purple Chamber, and emperors born there were known as born to the purple, separating them from those who seized power through intrigue or force. Gospel manuscripts were written in gold lettering on parchment colored Tyrian purple, and bishops of the Byzantine church wore white robes with stripes of purple to show their rank. When the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople in 1453, the great dye works were destroyed, and the color lost its imperial status in the West. In 1464, Pope Paul II decreed that cardinals should no longer wear Tyrian purple but instead wear scarlet, as the dye from Byzantium was no longer available. Bishops were assigned the color amaranth, a pale and pinkish purple made from a less-expensive mixture of indigo and cochineal. The color remained a symbol of power, but the source of that power had shifted from the sea to the court.
Common questions
When did purple first appear in prehistoric art?
Purple first appeared in prehistoric art during the Neolithic era, where artists in the Pech Merle cave used sticks of manganese and hematite powder to paint animals and hand outlines between 16,000 and 25,000 BC.
How was Tyrian purple dye produced in Ancient Phoenicia?
Citizens of Sidon and Tyre in Ancient Phoenicia began producing a dye from the spiny dye-murex snail as early as the 15th century BC. The process required thousands of tiny snails to be found, their shells cracked, and a tiny gland removed to extract the juice that transformed from white to yellow-green, then green, then violet, and finally a red that darkened into the color of dried blood.
Who invented the first synthetic purple dye and when?
An eighteen-year-old British chemistry student named William Henry Perkin invented the first synthetic aniline dye, a purple shade called mauveine, in 1856. His experiments produced the dye while trying to make a synthetic quinine, and it quickly became fashionable after Queen Victoria wore a silk gown dyed with mauveine to the Royal Exhibition of 1862.
What is the Purple Earth hypothesis?
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 true, large areas of the ocean and shoreline would have been colored purple, a theory called the Purple Earth hypothesis.
Which political parties use purple as their primary color?
Purple is the primary color used by many European and American political parties, including Volt Europa, the UK Independence Party, the Social Democrats in the Republic of Ireland, the Liberal People's Party in Norway, and the United States Pirate Party.
What is the significance of the Purple Forbidden Enclosure in Chinese astronomy?
In Chinese astrology, the North Star was the home of the Celestial Emperor, and the area around the North Star is called the Purple Forbidden Enclosure. For that reason, the Forbidden City in Beijing was also known as the Purple Forbidden City, and purple often represents the highest, holiest, and most sacred values in China.
For centuries, purple was the color of the aristocracy and the rich, but that changed in 1856 when an eighteen-year-old British chemistry student named William Henry Perkin was trying to make a synthetic quinine. His experiments produced instead the first synthetic aniline dye, a purple shade called mauveine, shortened simply to mauve. It took its name from the mallow flower, which is the same color. The new color quickly became fashionable, particularly after Queen Victoria wore a silk gown dyed with mauveine to the Royal Exhibition of 1862. Prior to Perkin's discovery, mauve was a color which only the aristocracy and rich could afford to wear. Perkin developed an industrial process, built a factory, and produced the dye by the ton, so almost anyone could wear mauve. It was the first of a series of modern industrial dyes which completely transformed both the chemical industry and fashion. Cobalt violet was the first modern synthetic color in the purple family, manufactured in 1859, and was found in the palette of Claude Monet, Paul Signac, and Georges Seurat. Quinacridone violet, one of a modern synthetic organic family of colors, was discovered in 1896 but not marketed until 1955. These modern pigments have strong resistance to sunlight and washing and are widely used today in oil paints, water colors, and acrylics, as well as in automobile coatings. The transition from the snail to the laboratory marked the moment purple ceased to be a secret of the elite and became a color for the masses.
The Color Of Change
In the 20th century, purple retained its historic connection with royalty, as seen in the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, but it was also becoming associated with social change. In the early 20th century, purple, green, and white were the colors of the Women's Suffrage movement, which fought to win the right to vote for women, finally succeeding with the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920. Later, in the 1970s, in a tribute to the Suffragettes, it became the color of the women's liberation movement. In the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, prisoners who were members of non-conformist religious groups, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, were required to wear a purple triangle. During the 1960s and early 1970s, it was also associated with counterculture, psychedelics, and musicians like Jimi Hendrix with his 1967 song Purple Haze, or the English rock band Deep Purple which formed in 1968. Later, in the 1980s, it was featured in the song and album Purple Rain by the American musician Prince. The Purple Rain Protest was a protest against apartheid that took place in Cape Town, South Africa on the 2nd of September 1989, in which a police water cannon with purple dye sprayed thousands of demonstrators, leading to the slogan The Purple Shall Govern. The color had evolved from a symbol of imperial authority to a banner for the marginalized and the rebellious.
The Science Of Sight
The meanings of the color terms violet and purple vary even among native speakers of English, for example between the United Kingdom and the United States. Optics research on purple and violet contains contributions of authors from different countries and different native languages, and it is likely to be inconsistent in the use and meaning of the two colors. According to some speakers of English, purple, unlike violet, is not one of the colors of the visible spectrum. It was not one of the colors of the rainbow identified by Isaac Newton. According to some authors, purple does not have its own wavelength of light. For this reason, it is sometimes called a non-spectral color. According to some speakers of English, purple is simply a combination, in various proportions, of two primary colors, red and blue. In the RGB color model, used to create all the colors on a computer screen or television, the range of purples is created by mixing red and blue light of different intensities on a black screen. The standard HTML color purple is created by red and blue light of equal intensity, at a brightness that is between full power and darkness. On a chromaticity diagram, the straight line connecting the extreme spectral colors red and violet is known as the line of purples, representing one limit of human color perception. The color magenta used in the CMYK printing process is near the center of the line of purples, but most people associate the term purple with a somewhat bluer tone, such as is displayed by the color electric purple. The scientific distinction between the spectral color violet and the non-spectral combination of red and blue purple remains a point of debate among physicists and artists alike.
The Purple Earth
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, a theory called the Purple Earth hypothesis. This scientific speculation connects the ancient history of purple to the very origins of life on Earth. Purple bacteria are bacteria that are phototrophic, capable of producing energy through photosynthesis. The color also appears in nature through anthocyanins, natural pigments found in grapes, eggplants, pansies, and other fruits, vegetables, and flowers. These pigments aid photosynthesis by blocking harmful wavelengths of light that would damage the leaves. In flowers, the purple anthocyanins help attract insects who pollinate the flowers. Not all anthocyanins are purple; they vary in color from red to purple to blue, green, or yellow, depending upon the level of their pH. The color also appears in the sky through the phenomenon of aerial perspective, where the greater the distance between a viewer's eyes and mountains, the lighter and more blue or purple they will appear. This effect, long recognized by Leonardo da Vinci, is caused by Rayleigh scattering, where the sunlit sky is blue because air scatters short-wavelength light more than longer wavelengths. At sunrise and sunset, the light is passing through the atmosphere at a lower angle, and traveling a greater distance through a larger volume of air, creating the colors of the sunrise and sunset and making the mountains look purple. The phenomenon is referenced in the song America the Beautiful, where the lyrics refer to purple mountains' majesty, and a Crayola crayon called Purple Mountain Majesty in reference to the lyric was first formulated in 1993.
The Purple Heart
The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those who have been wounded or killed during their service. In United States politics, a purple state is a state roughly balanced between Republicans, generally symbolized by red in the 21st century, and Democrats, symbolized by blue. In the politics of the Netherlands, Purple means a coalition government consisting of liberals and social democrats, symbolized by the colors blue and red, respectively. Between 1994 and 2002 there were two Purple cabinets, both led by Prime Minister Wim Kok. In the politics of Belgium, as with the Netherlands, a purple government includes liberal and social-democratic parties in coalition. Belgium was governed by Purple governments from 1999 to 2007 under the leadership of Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt. Purple is the primary color used by many European and American political parties, including Volt Europa, the UK Independence Party, the Social Democrats in the Republic of Ireland, the Liberal People's Party in Norway, and the United States Pirate Party. The color also appears in sports, with the National Basketball Association's Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns, Sacramento Kings, and Utah Jazz using purple as their primary color. In tennis, the official colors of the Wimbledon Championships are deep green and purple, traditionally called mauve. The color has permeated the modern world, from the flags of Dominica and Nicaragua to the uniforms of professional athletes and the ballots of political strategists.
The Forbidden City
In Chinese astrology, the North Star was the home of the Celestial Emperor, the ruler of the heavens. The area around the North Star is called the Purple Forbidden Enclosure in Chinese astronomy. For that reason, the Forbidden City in Beijing was also known as the Purple Forbidden City. Purple often represents the highest, holiest, and most sacred values in China. In Taoism, purple is a transitional color and metaphysically between yin and yang. Purple was a popular color introduced into Japanese dress during the Heian period, and the dye was made from the root of the alkanet plant, also known as murasaki in Japanese. At about the same time, Japanese painters began to use a pigment made from the same plant. In the 18th century, chemists in England, France, and Germany began to create the first synthetic dyes. Cudbear is a dye extracted from orchil lichens that can be used to dye wool and silk, without the use of a mordant. Cudbear was developed by Dr Cuthbert Gordon of Scotland, and production began in 1758. The manufacture details were carefully protected, with a ten-feet high wall being built around the manufacturing facility, and staff consisting of Highlanders sworn to secrecy. French purple was developed in France at about the same time. The lichen is extracted by urine or ammonia, and the resulting dye was more solid and stable than other purples. The color has traveled from the ancient courts of China and Japan to the laboratories of Europe, carrying with it the weight of history and the promise of the future.