Shades of purple
There are numerous variations of the color purple, a sampling of which are shown below.
In common English usage, purple is a range of hues of color occurring between red and blue.
In color theory, purple colors are any colors on the line of purples on the CIE chromaticity diagram, i.e., any color between red and violet, not including either red or violet themselves.
The first recorded use of purple as a color name in English was in 975 AD.
Historical development of purple
Tyrian purple: Classical antiquity
See also under Purple#In_art, history and fashion the section "In prehistory and the ancient world: Tyrian purple"clad in Tyrian purple; 6th-century mosaic in the Basilica of San Vitale
"Tyrian purple" is the contemporary English name of the color that in Latin is denominated "purpura". Other contemporary English names for purpura are "imperial purple" and "royal purple". The English name "purple" itself originally denominated the specific color purpura. Purpura is the color of a dye extracted from a mollusk found on the shores of the city of Tyre in ancient Phoenicia, which color in classical antiquity was a symbol of royalty and political authority because only the very wealthy could afford it, including the Roman Emperors. Therefore, Tyrian purple was also denominated "imperial purple".
Tyrian purple may have been discovered as early as during the Minoan civilization. Alexander the Great, when giving imperial audiences as the Emperor of Macedonia; the Emperor of the Seleucid Empire; and the Kings of Ptolemaic Egypt all wore Tyrian purple. The imperial robes of Roman emperors were of Tyrian purple trimmed in metallic gold thread. The badge of office of a Roman Senator was a stripe of Tyrian purple on his white toga. Tyrian purple was continued in use by the Emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire until its final collapse in 1453.
The tone of Tyrian purple displayed above is that tone of Tyrian purple which was the color of "clotted blood", which was considered the tone having the most prestige in ancient Greece and Rome, as recorded by Pliny the Elder. However, the actual tone varied depending on how the dye was formulated. Lesser royal houses that wanted to economize could mix Tyrian purple dye with the much less expensive indigo to create a color closer to violet.
Han purple: Ancient China
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 Terracotta Army.Royal purple: 17th century
The color royal purple is shown at right.This tone of purple is bluer than the ancient Tyrian purple.
The first recorded use of royal purple as a color name in English was in 1661.
In 1990, royal purple was formulated as one of the Crayola crayon colors.
Mauveine: 1860s–1890s
Mauveine was first named in 1856. Chemist Sir William Henry Perkin, then eighteen, was attempting to create artificial quinine. An unexpected residue caught his eye, which turned out to be the first aniline dye—specifically, Perkin's mauve or mauveine is sometimes called aniline purple. Perkin was so successful in recommending his discovery to the dyestuffs industry that his biography by Simon Garfield is titled Mauve. As mauveine faded easily, our contemporary understanding of mauve is as a lighter, less saturated color than it was originally known."Mauveine" was named after the mauve colored mallow flower, even though it is a much deeper tone of purple than mauve. The term "Mauve" in the late 19th century could refer to either the deep, rich color of the dye or the light color of the flower. Mauve came into great vogue when in 1862 Queen Victoria appeared at the Royal Exhibition in a mauve silk gown—dyed with mauveine. By 1890, this color had become so pervasive in fashion that author Thomas Beer used it in the title of his book about the 1890s, The Mauve Decade.
Artists' pigment purple (red-violet): 1930s
'Royal purple' or the dark violet color known as generic purple is the common layman's idea of purple, but professional artists, following Munsell color system, regard purple as being synonymous with the red-violet color shown at right, represented by the web color medium violet red, 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 magenta. In the Munsell color system, this color at its maximum chroma of 12 is called Red-Purple, or more specifically Munsell 5RP.Artists' pigments and colored pencils labeled as purple are typically colored the red-violet color shown at right. On an RYB color wheel, red-violet is the color between red and violet.
Electric purple: 2000s
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 a computer. This color is pure purple conceived as computer artists conceive it, as the color on the color wheel halfway between color wheel violet and electric magenta. Thus, electric purple is the purest and brightest purple that it is possible to display on a computer screen. Its RGB code is.
An old name for this color, used by Robert Ridgway in his 1912 book on color nomenclature, Color Standards and Color Nomenclature, is true purple.
Computer web color purples
Purple (HTML/CSS color) (patriarch)
This purple used in HTML and CSS actually is deeper and has a more reddish hue than the X11 color purple shown below as purple , which is bluer and brighter.This color may be called HTML/CSS purple. It seems likely that this color was chosen as the web color purple because its hue is exactly halfway between red and blue and its value is exactly halfway between white and black.
A traditional name sometimes used for this tone of purple is patriarch. The first recorded use of patriarch as a color name in English was in 1925.
Purple (X11 color) (veronica)
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.
, for which the color veronica is named
The traditional name for this tone of purple is veronica. The first recorded use of veronica'' as a color name in English was in 1919.
Medium purple (X11)
Displayed at right is the web color medium purple.This color is a medium shade of the bright X11 purple shown above.
Rebecca purple
Rebecca purple was named after the daughter of CSS pioneer Eric A. Meyer and added to CSS 4.1.Additional definition of purple
Purple (Munsell)
The color defined as purple in the Munsell color system is shown at right. The Munsell color system is a color space that specifies colors based on three color dimensions: hue, value, and chroma, spaced uniformly in three dimensions in the elongated oval at an angle shaped Munsell color solid according to the logarithmic scale which governs human perception. In order for all the colors to be spaced uniformly, it was found necessary to use a color wheel with five primary colors—red, yellow, green, blue, and purple.The Munsell colors displayed are only approximate as they have been adjusted to fit into the sRGB gamut.
Additional variations
Pale purple
Pale purple is the pale tint of purple.Mauve
Mauve is a pale purple. Mauve is named after the mallow flower. Another name for the color is mallow with the first recorded use of mallow as a color name in English in 1611.Thistle
Thistle is a light purple resembling the thistle plant.The first recorded use of Thistle as a color name in English was in 1892.
The color thistle is associated with Scotland because the thistle is the national flower of Scotland and Scotland's highest state decoration is the Order of the Thistle.
Orchid
The color orchid is a bright rich 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.The first recorded use of orchid as a color name in English was in 1915.
Heliotrope
The color heliotrope is a brilliant tone of purple; it is a pink-purple tint that is a representation of the color of the heliotrope flower.The first recorded use of heliotrope as a color name in English was in 1882.
Psychedelic purple (phlox)
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 tone of purple was very popular among hippies and was the favorite color of Jimi Hendrix. Thus it is called psychedelic purple. Psychedelic purple is the color halfway between electric purple and magenta.In the 1980s, there was a Jimi Hendrix Museum in a Victorian house on the east side of Central Avenue one half block south of Haight Street in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco which was painted this color.
Another name for this color is phlox, as it is the color of the phlox flower. The first recorded use of phlox as a color name in English was in 1918.
Purple pizzazz
Displayed at right is the color purple pizzazz.This color was formulated by Crayola in 1990.
Liseran purple
Displayed at right is the color liseran purple.The first recorded use of liseran purple as a color name in English was in 1912.
Mulberry
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.
Pearly purple
At right is displayed the color pearly purple.Pearly purple is one of the colors in the special set of metallic colored Crayola crayons called Silver Swirls, the colors of which were formulated by Crayola in 1990.
Purpureus
The color purpureus is displayed at right. Another name for this color is purpura.The first recorded use of purpura as a color name in English was in 1382.
Northwestern Purple
Northwestern Purple is the official color of Northwestern University, as shown at the right. Additionally, there are shades and tints that are variations of the base color. Northwestern Purple is a custom ink color and can no longer be referenced by a Pantone number.KSU Purple
For printed material, purple is the official school color of Kansas State University, as shown at the right. Traditionally, the school has referred to this darker and bluer shade as Royal Purple.For the web, #512888 is the official color, even though that hex triplet is not a direct conversion from Pantone 268+.
Pomp and Power
The color pomp and power is displayed at right.The color pomp and power is not found in the 1930 first edition of the Dictionary of Color by Maerz and Paul, but it is found in the second edition of 1950.
Mardi Gras
The color Mardi Gras is displayed at right.The color name Mardi Gras has been in use since 2001 when the was first promulgated.
Eminence
The color eminence is displayed at right.The color name eminence, used since the 1800s, has been in modern use for this color since 2001 when the was first promulgated.
Byzantium
The color Byzantium, a dark tone of purple, is displayed at right.The first recorded use of byzantium as a color name in English was in 1926.
Pansy purple
The pansy flower has varieties that exhibit three different colors: pansy, pansy pink, and pansy purple.The first recorded use of pansy purple as a color name in English was in 1814.