Violet is the

color Color (or colour in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though co ...

light Light, visible light, or visible radiation is electromagnetic radiation that can be visual perception, perceived by the human eye. Visible light spans the visible spectrum and is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400– ...

at the short

wavelength In physics and mathematics, wavelength or spatial period of a wave or periodic function is the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. In other words, it is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same ''phase (waves ...

end of the

visible spectrum The visible spectrum is the spectral band, band of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visual perception, visible to the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called ''visible light'' (or simply light). The optica ...

. It is one of the seven colors that

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...

labeled when dividing the spectrum of visible light in 1672. Violet light has a wavelength between approximately 380 and 450 nanometers. The color's name is derived from the ''Viola'' genus of flowers. In the

RGB color model The RGB color model is an additive color, additive color model in which the red, green, and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials ...

used in computer and television screens, violet is produced by mixing red and blue light, with more blue than red. In the RYB color model historically used by painters, violet is created with a combination of red and blue pigments and is located between blue and

purple Purple is a color similar in appearance to violet light. In the RYB color model historically used in the arts, purple is a secondary color created by combining red and blue pigments. In the CMYK color model used in modern printing, purple is ...

on the

color wheel A color wheel or color circle is an abstract illustrative organization of color hues around a circle, which shows the relationships between primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors etc. Some sources use the terms ''color wheel'' an ...

. In the

CMYK color model The CMYK color model (also known as process color, or four color) is a subtractive color model, based on the CMY color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. The abbreviation ''CMYK'' refers ...

used in printing, violet is created with a combination of

magenta Magenta () is a purple-red color. On color wheels of the RGB color model, RGB (additive) and subtractive color, CMY (subtractive) color models, it is located precisely midway between blue and red. It is one of the four colors of ink used in colo ...

and cyan pigments, with more magenta than cyan. On the RGB/ CMY( K) color wheel, violet is located between blue and magenta. Violet is closely associated with

. In

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...

, violet is a

spectral color A spectral color is a color that is evoked by monochromatic light, i.e. either a spectral line with a single wavelength or frequency of light in the visible spectrum, or a relatively narrow spectral band (e.g. lasers). Every wave of visible ...

(referring to the color of different single wavelengths of light), whereas purple is the color of various combinations of red and blue (or violet) light, some of which humans perceive as similar to violet. In common usage, both terms are used to refer to a variety of colors between blue and red in hue. Violet has a long history of association with royalty, originally because

Tyrian purple Tyrian purple ( ''porphúra''; ), also known as royal purple, imperial purple, or imperial dye, is a reddish-purple natural dye. The name Tyrian refers to Tyre, Lebanon, once Phoenicia. It is secreted by several species of predatory sea snails ...

dye was extremely expensive in antiquity. The emperors of Rome wore purple togas, as did the Byzantine emperors. During the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, violet was worn by

bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

s and university professors and was often used in art as the color of the robes of the

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

. In

Chinese painting Chinese painting () is one of the oldest continuous artistic traditions in the world. Painting in the traditional style is known today in Chinese as , meaning "national painting" or "native painting", as opposed to Western styles of art which b ...

, the color violet represents the "unity transcending the duality of

Yin and yang Originating in Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (, ), also yinyang or yin-yang, is the concept of opposite cosmic principles or forces that interact, interconnect, and perpetuate each other. Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary an ...

" and "the ultimate harmony of the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents. It comprises all of existence, any fundamental interaction, physical process and physical constant, and therefore all forms of matter and energy, and the structures they form, from s ...

".Varichon, Anne ''Colors:What They Mean and How to Make Them'' New York:2006 Abrams Page 138 In

New Age New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...

thinking, purple and/or violet is associated with the crown chakra. One European study suggests that violet is the color people most often associate with extravagance, individualism, vanity and ambiguity.Eva Heller, ''Psychologie de la couleur: effets et symboliques''. p. 4. "La plus individualist et extravagant des coulours." (associated by 26 percent of respondents to survey with "extravagance", by 22 percent with "individualism", 24 percent with "vanity", 21 percent with "ambiguity").

Etymology and definitions

The word ''violet'' as a color name derives from the

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...

and

Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th violet flower. The first recorded use as a color name in English was in 1370.

Relationship to purple

Violet is closely associated with

. In

, violet is a

: It refers to the color of any different single wavelength of light on the short wavelength end of the visible spectrum (between approximately 380 and 435 nanometers), whereas purple is the color of various combinations of red, blue and violet light, some of which some humans perceive as similar to violet. In common usage, both terms are used to refer to a variety of colors between blue and red in hue. Historically, violet has tended to be used for bluer hues and purple for redder hues. In the traditional

used by painters, violet and purple are both placed between red and blue, with violet being closer to blue.

In science

Optics

Violet is at one end of the spectrum of visible light, between blue">Visible spectrum">spectrum of visible light, between blue light, which has a longer wavelength, and ultraviolet light, which has a shorter wavelength and is not visible to humans. Violet wavelengths are between approximately 380 and 435 nanometers. The color violet appears dark because the S cones, which contribute very little to the perception of lightness, do not have a high sensitivity to violet light. The reason why to (typical trichromat) humans violet light appears slightly reddish compared to spectral blue (despite spectral red being at the other end of the visible spectrum) is, according to the opponent process hypothesis of color vision, that the S-

cone In geometry, a cone is a three-dimensional figure that tapers smoothly from a flat base (typically a circle) to a point not contained in the base, called the '' apex'' or '' vertex''. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines ...

type (i.e. the one most sensitive to short wavelengths) contributes some red to the red-versus-green opponent channel (which at the longer blue wavelengths gets counteracted by the M-cone type). Figure 2 shows S-cones contributing +0.40 to the "r − g" opponent channel. Computer and television screens, using the

, cannot produce spectral violet light and instead they combine blue light at high intensity with red light at less intensity. Monochromatic lamps emitting spectral-violet wavelengths can be roughly approximated by the color named electric violet, which is a composed-light violet producing a similar effect to the human eye.

Chemistry – pigments and dyes

The earliest violet pigments used by humans, found in prehistoric cave paintings, were made from the minerals

manganese Manganese is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese was first isolated in the 1770s. It is a transition m ...

and

hematite Hematite (), also spelled as haematite, is a common iron oxide compound with the formula, Fe2O3 and is widely found in rocks and soils. Hematite crystals belong to the rhombohedral lattice system which is designated the alpha polymorph of . ...

. Manganese is still used today by the Aranda people, a group of

indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...

, as a traditional pigment for coloring the skin during rituals. It is also used by the

Hopi The Hopi are Native Americans who primarily live in northeastern Arizona. The majority are enrolled in the Hopi Tribe of Arizona and live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona; however, some Hopi people are enrolled in the Colorado ...

Indians of

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

to color ritual objects. The most famous violet-purple dye in the ancient world was

, made from a type of sea snail called the

murex ''Murex'' is a genus of medium to large sized predatory tropical sea snails. These are carnivorous marine gastropod molluscs in the family Muricidae, commonly called "murexes" or "rock snails".Houart, R.; Gofas, S. (2010). Murex Linnaeus, 1 ...

, found around the Mediterranean. In western

Polynesia Polynesia ( , ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in ...

, residents of the islands made a violet dye similar to Tyrian purple from the

sea urchin Sea urchins or urchins () are echinoderms in the class (biology), class Echinoidea. About 950 species live on the seabed, inhabiting all oceans and depth zones from the intertidal zone to deep seas of . They typically have a globular body cove ...

. In Central America, the inhabitants made a dye from a different sea snail, the purpura, found on the coasts of

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

and

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

. The Mayans used this color to dye fabric for religious ceremonies, and the Aztecs used it for paintings of ideograms, where it symbolized royalty.Anne Carichon (2000), ''Couleurs: pigments et teintures dans les mains des peuples''. p. 133 During the Middle Ages, most artists made purple or violet on their paintings by combining red and blue pigments; usually blue azurite or lapis-lazuli with red ochre,

cinnabar Cinnabar (; ), or cinnabarite (), also known as ''mercurblende'' is the bright scarlet to brick-red form of Mercury sulfide, mercury(II) sulfide (HgS). It is the most common source ore for refining mercury (element), elemental mercury and is t ...

or minium. They also combined lake colors by mixing dye with powder;

woad ''Isatis tinctoria'', also called woad (), dyer's woad, dyer's-weed, or glastum, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae (the mustard family) with a documented history of use as a blue dye and medicinal plant. Its genus name, ''Isati ...

indigo InterGlobe Aviation Limited (d/b/a IndiGo), is an India, Indian airline headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, India. It is the largest List of airlines of India, airline in India by passengers carried and fleet size, with a 64.1% domestic market ...

dye for blue and

cochineal The cochineal ( , ; ''Dactylopius coccus'') is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the natural dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessility (motility), sessile parasitism, parasite native to tropical and subtropical Sout ...

dye for red. Orcein, or ''purple moss'', was another common violet dye. It was known to the ancient Greeks and Hebrews, was made from a Mediterranean

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

called archil or dyer's moss ( Roccella tinctoria), combined with an ammoniac, usually urine. Orcein began to achieve popularity again in the 19th century, when violet and purple became the color of demi-mourning, worn after a widow or widower had worn black for a certain time, before he or she returned to wearing ordinary colors. In the 18th century, chemists in England, France and Germany began to create the first synthetic dyes. Two synthetic purple dyes were invented at about the same time. Cudbear is a

dye Juan de Guillebon, better known by his stage name DyE, is a French musician. He is known for the music video of the single "Fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical ele ...

extracted from orchil

s that can be used to dye

wool Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have some properties similar to animal w ...

and

silk Silk is a natural fiber, natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving, woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is most commonly produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoon (silk), c ...

, without the use of mordant. Cudbear was developed by Cuthbert Gordon of

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

: production began in 1758, The lichen is first boiled in a solution of ammonium carbonate. The mixture is then cooled and

ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the chemical formula, formula . A Binary compounds of hydrogen, stable binary hydride and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinctive pu ...

is added and the mixture is kept damp for 3–4 weeks. Then the lichen is dried and ground to powder. The manufacture details were carefully protected, with a ten-foot high wall 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. Then the extract is acidified, the dissolved dye precipitates and is washed. Then it is dissolved in ammonia again, the solution is heated in air until it becomes purple, then it is precipitated with

calcium chloride Calcium chloride is an inorganic compound, a Salt (chemistry), salt with the chemical formula . It is a white crystalline solid at room temperature, and it is highly soluble in water. It can be created by neutralising hydrochloric acid with cal ...

; the resulting dye was more solid and stable than other purples. Cobalt violet is a synthetic pigment that was invented in the second half of the 19th century, and is made by a similar process as

cobalt blue Cobalt blue is a blue pigment made by sintering cobalt(II) oxide with aluminium(III) oxide (alumina) at 1200 °C. Chemically, cobalt blue pigment is cobalt(II) oxide-aluminium oxide, or cobalt(II) aluminate, CoAl2O4. Cobalt blue is lighte ...

, cerulean blue and cobalt green. It is the violet pigment most commonly used today by artists, along with manganese violet. Mauveine, also known as

aniline Aniline (From , meaning ' indigo shrub', and ''-ine'' indicating a derived substance) is an organic compound with the formula . Consisting of a phenyl group () attached to an amino group (), aniline is the simplest aromatic amine. It is an in ...

and Perkin's

mauve Mauve ( ; ) is a pale purple color named after the mallow flower (French: ). The first use of the word ''mauve'' as a color was in 1796–1798 according to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', but its use seems to have been rare before 1859. ...

, was the first synthetic

organic chemical Some chemical authorities define an organic compound as a chemical compound that contains a Carbon–hydrogen bond, carbon–hydrogen or carbon–carbon bond; others consider an organic compound to be any chemical compound that contains carbon. F ...

dye, discovered serendipitously during an attempt to make quinine in 1856. Its chemical name is 3-amino-2,±9-dimethyl-5-phenyl-7-(p-tolylamino) phenazinium acetate. In the 1950s, a new family of violet synthetic organic pigments called quinacridones came onto the market. They had originally been discovered in 1896, synthesized in 1936 and manufactured in the 1950s. The colors in the group range from deep red to violet in color, and have the molecular formula C₂₀H₁₂N₂O₂. They have strong resistance to sunlight and washing, and are used in oil paints, watercolors and acrylics, as well as in automobile coatings and other industrial coatings. File:Amatista Laye 2.jpg, In

amethyst Amethyst is a Violet (color), violet variety of quartz. The name comes from the Koine Greek from - , "not" and (Ancient Greek) / (Modern Greek), "intoxicate", a reference to the belief that the stone protected its owner from Alcohol into ...

, the violet color arises from an impurity of iron in the quartz. File:Pigment Violet 29.svg, Chemical structure of pigment violet 29. Violet pigments typically have several rings. File:Manganese violet.jpg, Manganese violet, a popular inorganic pigment.

Zoology

File:Messina Straits Argyropelecus hemigymnus.jpg, The marine hatchetfish (here eating a small crustacean) lives in extreme depths. File:PurpleUrchinPuertoVG.JPG, The purple sea urchin. File:Xylocopa violacea-Abeille charpentière-201606102.jpg, The violet carpenter bee ( Xylocopa violacea) is one of the largest bees in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. File:Cinnyricinclus leucogaster - 20080321.jpg, The violet-backed starling is found in

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...

. File:Violet Sabrewing JCB.jpg, The violet sabrewing is found in

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

. File:Amazona imperialis -Roseau -Dominica -aviary-6a-3c.jpg, The imperial amazon parrot is featured on the national flag of

Dominica Dominica, officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. It is part of the Windward Islands chain in the Lesser Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of t ...

, making it the only national flag in the world with a violet color.

Botany

File:Lobelia (aka).jpg, Lobelia File:- Crocus -.jpg,

Crocus ''Crocus'' (; plural: crocuses or croci) is a genus of seasonal flowering plants in the family Iridaceae (iris family) comprising about 100 species of perennial plant, perennials growing from corms. They are low growing plants, whose flower stem ...

flowers. File:Royal Botanical Gardens Lilac Celebration.JPG,

Lilac ''Syringa'' is a genus of 12 currently recognized species of flowering woody plants in the olive family or Oleaceae called lilacs. These lilacs are native to woodland and scrub from southeastern Europe to eastern Asia, and widely and commonly ...

flowers File:Pensées violettes et noires.JPG,

Pansy The garden pansy (''Viola'' × ''wittrockiana'') is a type of polychromatic large-flowered hybrid plant cultivated as a garden flower. It is derived by hybridization from several species in the section ''Melanium'' ("the pansies") of the ge ...

flowers. File:Viole.jpg, Sweet violet flowers. File:Iris sanguinea 2007-05-13 361.jpg, The iris flower takes its name from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

word for

rainbow A rainbow is an optical phenomenon caused by refraction, internal reflection and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a continuous spectrum of light appearing in the sky. The rainbow takes the form of a multicoloured circular ...

. File:Vaucluse lavanda.jpg,

Lavender ''Lavandula'' (common name lavender) is a genus of 47 known species of perennial flowering plants in the sage family, Lamiaceae. It is native plant, native to the Old World, primarily found across the drier, warmer regions of the Mediterranean ...

fields in the

Vaucluse Vaucluse (; or ) is a department in the southeastern French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. It had a population of 561,469 as of 2019.

, in

Provence Provence is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which stretches from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the France–Italy border, Italian border to the east; it is bordered by the Mediterrane ...

, France File:Glycine (Wisteria) (2).jpg, alt=Wisteria blooms are a light violet color.,

Wisteria ''Wisteria'' is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae (Leguminosae). The genus includes four species of woody twining vines that are native to China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, southern Canada, the Eastern United States, and nor ...

blooms are a light violet color. File:Aubergine.jpg, An

eggplant Eggplant (American English, US, Canadian English, CA, Australian English, AU, Philippine English, PH), aubergine (British English, UK, Hiberno English, IE, New Zealand English, NZ), brinjal (Indian English, IN, Singapore English, SG, Malays ...

In history and art

Prehistory and antiquity

Violet is one of the oldest colors used by humans. Traces of very dark violet, made by grinding the mineral

, mixed with water or animal fat and then brushed on the cave wall or applied with the fingers, are found in the prehistoric cave art in

Pech Merle Pech Merle is a French hillside cave at Cabrerets, in the Lot département of the Occitania Occitania is the historical region in Southern Europe where the Occitan language was historically spoken and where it is sometimes used as a se ...

, in France, dating back about 25,000 years. It has also been found in the cave of Altamira and

Lascaux Lascaux ( , ; , "Lascaux Cave") is a network of caves near the village of Montignac, Dordogne, Montignac, in the Departments of France, department of Dordogne in southwestern France. Over 600 Parietal art, parietal cave painting, wall paintin ...

. It was sometimes used as an alternative to black charcoal. Sticks of manganese, used for drawing, have been found at sites occupied by

Neanderthal Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...

s in France and Israel. From the grinding tools at various sites, it appears it may also have been used to color the body and to decorate animal skins. More recently, the earliest dates on cave paintings have been pushed back farther than 35,000 years. Hand paintings on rock walls in Australia may be even older, dating back as far as 50,000 years. Berries of the genus

rubus ''Rubus'' is a large and diverse genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, subfamily Rosoideae, most commonly known as brambles. Fruits of various species are known as raspberries, blackberries, dewberries, and bristleberries. ...

, such as

blackberries BlackBerry is a discontinued brand of handheld devices and related mobile services, originally developed and maintained by the Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM, later known as BlackBerry Limited) until 2016. The first BlackBerry device ...

, were a common source of dyes in antiquity. The ancient Egyptians made a kind of violet dye by combining the juice of the

mulberry ''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of 19 species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 subordinat ...

with crushed green grapes. The Roman historian

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/24 79), known in English as Pliny the Elder ( ), was a Roman Empire, Roman author, Natural history, naturalist, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the Roman emperor, emperor Vesp ...

reported that the

Gauls The Gauls (; , ''Galátai'') were a group of Celts, Celtic peoples of mainland Europe in the Iron Age Europe, Iron Age and the Roman Gaul, Roman period (roughly 5th century BC to 5th century AD). Their homeland was known as Gaul (''Gallia''). Th ...

used a violet dye made from

bilberry Bilberries () are Eurasian low-growing shrubs in the genus ''Vaccinium'' in the flowering plant family Ericaceae that bear edible, dark blue berries. They resemble but are distinct from North American blueberries. The species most often referre ...

to color the clothing of slaves. These dyes made a satisfactory purple, but it faded quickly in sunlight and when washed.

Middle Ages and Renaissance

Violet and purple retained their status as the color of emperors and princes of the church throughout the long rule of the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

. While violet was worn less frequently by Medieval and Renaissance kings and princes, it was worn by the professors of many of Europe's new universities. Their robes were modeled after those of the clergy, and they often wore square violet caps and violet robes, or black robes with violet trim. Violet also played an important part in the religious paintings of the Renaissance. Angels and the

were often portrayed wearing violet robes. The 15th-century Florentine painter

Cennino Cennini Cennino d'Andrea Cennini (; – before 1427) was an Italian painter influenced by Giotto. He was a student of Agnolo Gaddi in Florence. Gaddi trained under his father, called Taddeo Gaddi, who trained with Giotto. He is remembered mainly f ...

advised artists: "If you want to make a lovely violet colour, take fine lacca, ultramarine blue (the same amount of the one as of the other)..." For fresco painters, he advised a less-expensive version, made of a mixture of blue indigo and red

. File:The Wilton Diptych (Right).jpg, The Wilton Diptych (1395), painted for King Richard II. File:Rafael - Ressurreição de Cristo (detalhe - anjo).jpg, A violet-clad angel from the ''

Resurrection of Christ The resurrection of Jesus () is Christian belief that God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion, starting—or restoring—his exalted life as Christ and Lord. According to the New Testament writing, Jesus w ...

'' by Raphael (1483–1520).

18th and 19th centuries

In the 18th century, purple was a color worn by royalty, aristocrats and other wealthy people. Good-quality purple fabric was too expensive for ordinary people. The first cobalt violet, the intensely red-violet cobalt arsenate, was highly toxic. Although it persisted in some paint lines into the 20th century, it was displaced by less toxic cobalt compounds such as cobalt phosphate. Cobalt violet appeared in the second half of the 19th century, broadening the palette of artists with its range of purple colors. Cobalt violet was used by Paul Signac (1863–1935),

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, ; ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of Impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his ...

(1840–1926) and Georges Seurat (1859–1891). Today, cobalt ammonium phosphate, cobalt lithium phosphate and cobalt phosphate are available for use by artists. Cobalt ammonium phosphate is the most reddish of the three. Cobalt phosphate is available in two varieties — a deep less saturated blueish type and a lighter and brighter somewhat more reddish type. Cobalt lithium phosphate is a saturated lighter-valued bluish violet. A color similar to cobalt ammonium phosphate, cobalt magnesium borate, was introduced in the later 20th century but was not deemed sufficiently lightfast for artistic use. Cobalt violet is the only truly lightfast purple pigment with relatively strong color saturation. All other light-stable purple pigments are dull by comparison. The high price of the pigment and the toxicity of cobalt have limited its use. In the 1860s, the popularity of using violet colors suddenly rose among painters and other artists. For example,

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...

(1853–1890) was an avid student of color theory. He used violet in many of his paintings of the 1880s, including his paintings of irises and the swirling and mysterious skies of his starry night paintings, and often combined it with its

complementary color Complementary colors are pairs of colors which, when combined or color mixing, mixed, cancel each other out (lose Colorfulness, chroma) by producing a grayscale color like white or black. When placed next to each other, they create the stronge ...

, yellow. In his painting of his bedroom in Arles (1888), he used several sets of complementary colors; violet and yellow, red and green and orange and blue. In a letter about the painting to his brother Theo, he wrote, "The color here...should be suggestive of sleep and repose in general....The walls are a pale violet. The floor is of red tiles. The wood of the bed and the chairs are fresh butter yellow, the sheet and the pillows light lemon green. The bedspread bright scarlet. The window green. The bed table orange. The bowl blue. The doors lilac....The painting should rest the head or the imagination." In 1856, a young British chemist named William Henry Perkin was trying to make a synthetic

quinine Quinine is a medication used to treat malaria and babesiosis. This includes the treatment of malaria due to ''Plasmodium falciparum'' that is resistant to chloroquine when artesunate is not available. While sometimes used for nocturnal leg ...

. His experiments produced instead an unexpected residue, which turned out to be the first synthetic aniline dye, a deep purple color called mauveine, or abbreviated simply to

(the dye being named after the lighter color of the mallow auveflower). Used to dye clothes, it became extremely fashionable among the nobility and upper classes in Europe, particularly after

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

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. File:Musée Fabre expo. Jean Ranc48 Ranc Jean infant Charles.jpg, Charles de Bourbon, the future King Carlos III of Spain (1725). File:Arthur Hughes - April Love - Google Art Project.jpg, In England,

pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), later known as the Pre-Raphaelites, was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, ...

painters like Arthur Hughes were particularly enchanted by purple and violet. This is '' April Love'' (1856). File:Whistler James Nocturne Trafalgar Square Chelsea Snow 1876.jpg, ''Nocturne: Trafalgar Square Chelsea Snow'' (1876) by

James McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter in oils and watercolor, and printmaker, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral a ...

, used violet to create a wintery mood. File:VanGogh-starry night.jpg, '' The Starry Night'', by

(1889),

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

20th and 21st centuries

Violet or purple neckties became popular at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, particularly among political and business leaders.

In culture

Popularity

In a European survey, three percent of respondents said violet is their favorite color, ranking it behind blue, green, red, black and yellow (in that order), and tied with orange. Ten percent called it their least favorite color; brown, pink and gray were more unpopular.

Royalty and luxury

Because of its status as the color of Roman emperors, monarchs and princes, purple and violet are often associated with luxury. Certain luxury goods, such as watches and jewelry, are often placed in boxes lined with violet velvet, since violet is the complementary color of yellow and shows gold to best advantage.

Vanity, extravagance and individualism

While violet is the color of humility in the symbolism of the Catholic Church, it has exactly the opposite meaning in general society. A European poll in 2000 showed it was the color most commonly associated with vanity. As a color that rarely exists in nature and so attracts attention, it is seen as a color of individualism and extravagance.

Heian period

In Japan, violet was a popular color introduced into dress during the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

(794–1185). The dye was made from the root of the alkanet plant (''

Anchusa officinalis ''Anchusa officinalis'', also knowns as common bugloss or common alkanet, is a species of flowering plant in the borage family. It is native to Europe and small parts of western Asia, but has been escaped from cultivation to grow in additional lo ...

''), known as ''murasaki'' in Japanese. At about the same time, Japanese painters began to use a pigment made from the same plant.

New Age

The "

Prophetess", Alice Bailey, in her system called the Seven Rays which classifies humans into seven different metaphysical

psychological types ''Psychological Types'' () is a book by Carl Jung that was originally published in German by Rascher Verlag in 1921, and translated into English in 1923, becoming volume 6 of '' The Collected Works of C. G. Jung''. In the book, Jung proposes f ...

, the "seventh ray" of "Ceremonial Order" is represented by the color violet. People who have this metaphysical psychological type are said to be "on the Violet Ray". In the Ascended Master Teachings, the color violet is used to represent the

Ascended Master Ascended masters, also known as Mahatmas, are believed in several theosophical and related spiritual traditions to be spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans. Through a series of spiritual transformations, ...

St. Germain."St. Germain" ( dictated through Elizabeth Clare Prophet) ''Studies in Alchemy: the Science of Self-Transformation'' 1974:Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA Summit Lighthouse Pages 80–90 ccultBiographical sketch of St. Germain ''The Invocation of the Violet Flame'' is a system of

meditation Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking", achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditat ...

practice used in the "I AM" Activity and by the Church Universal and Triumphant (both Ascended Master Teaching religions).

Religion

In the Roman Catholic church, violet is worn by

s and

archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

s, red by cardinals and white by the

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

. Ordinary priests wear black. As in many other Western churches, violet is the liturgical color of

Advent Advent is a season observed in most Christian denominations as a time of waiting and preparation for both the celebration of Jesus's birth at Christmas and the return of Christ at the Second Coming. It begins on the fourth Sunday before Chri ...

and

Lent Lent (, 'Fortieth') is the solemn Christianity, Christian religious moveable feast#Lent, observance in the liturgical year in preparation for Easter. It echoes the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring Temptation of Christ, t ...

, which respectively celebrate the expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the

Crucifixion of Jesus The crucifixion of Jesus was the death of Jesus by being crucifixion, nailed to a cross.The instrument of Jesus' crucifixion, instrument of crucifixion is taken to be an upright wooden beam to which was added a transverse wooden beam, thus f ...

and the time for

penance Penance is any act or a set of actions done out of contrition for sins committed, as well as an alternative name for the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession. The word ''penance'' derive ...

and/or

mourning Mourning is the emotional expression in response to a major life event causing grief, especially loss. It typically occurs as a result of someone's death, especially a loved one. The word is used to describe a complex of behaviors in which t ...

. A stained glass window installed in the early 1920s in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles depicts

God the Father God the Father is a title given to God in Christianity. In mainstream trinitarian Christianity, God the Father is regarded as the first Person of the Trinity, followed by the second person, Jesus Christ the Son, and the third person, God th ...

wearing a violet robe. After the Vatican II Council, which modified many of the rules of the Catholic church, priests began to wear violet robes when celebrating masses for the dead. Black was no longer used, since it was the color of mourning outside the church and deemed inappropriate in a religious ceremony. In

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Hypernymy and hyponymy, umbrella term for a range of Indian religions, Indian List of religions and spiritual traditions#Indian religions, religious and spiritual traditions (Sampradaya, ''sampradaya''s) that are unified ...

, violet is used to symbolically represent the seventh, crown

chakra A chakra (; ; ) is one of the various focal points used in a variety of ancient meditation practices, collectively denominated as Tantra, part of the inner traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism. The concept of the chakra arose in Hinduism. B ...

( Sahasrara).

Politics

In the early 20th century, violet, white and gold were the colors of the

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

movement in the United States, seeking the right to vote for women. The colors were said to represent liberty and dignity. For this reason, the postage stamp issued in 1936 to honor Susan B. Anthony, a prominent leader of the suffrage movement in the United States, was colored the reddish tone of violet sometimes known as

red-violet Red-violet is a rich color of high medium saturation about 3/4 of the way between red and magenta, closer to magenta than to red. In American English, this color term is sometimes used in color theory as one of the purple colors—a non-Spectru ...

. In 1908, Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, co-editor of the

Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom founded in 1903. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and p ...

(WSPU) newspaper, designed the color scheme for the

suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...

movement in Britain and Ireland, with violet for loyalty and dignity, white for purity and green for hope. The pan-European movement

Volt Europa Volt Europa (known mononymously as Volt) is a transnational pro-European and Federalisation of the European Union, federalist European political alliances, European political movement. It operates as a Pan-European identity, pan-European umbrell ...

and its national subsidiary parties use violet in their uniforms. A small

political party in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

with about 1,150 members is called The Violet Party. It believes in

direct democracy Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the Election#Electorate, electorate directly decides on policy initiatives, without legislator, elected representatives as proxies, as opposed to the representative democracy m ...

, a

guaranteed minimum income Guaranteed minimum income (GMI), also called minimum income (or mincome for short), is a social-welfare spending, welfare system that guarantees all citizens or families an income sufficient to live on, provided that certain eligibility conditions ...

and politics based on

spirituality The meaning of ''spirituality'' has developed and expanded over time, and various meanings can be found alongside each other. Traditionally, spirituality referred to a religious process of re-formation which "aims to recover the original shape o ...

. It was founded in

Dortmund Dortmund (; ; ) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the List of cities in Germany by population, ninth-largest city in Germany. With a population of 614,495 inhabitants, it is the largest city ...

in 2001.

Lesbianism

Violet flowers and their color became symbolically associated with

lesbianism A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homo ...

. It was used as a special code by lesbians and bisexual women for self-identification and also to communicate support for the sexual preference. This connection originates from the poet

Sappho Sappho (; ''Sapphṓ'' ; Aeolic Greek ''Psápphō''; ) was an Ancient Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by music. In ancient times, Sapph ...

and fragments of her poems. In one poem, she describes a lost partner wearing a garland of "violet tiaras, braided rosebuds, dill and crocus twined around" her neck. In another fragment, she recalls her partner as having "put around yourself any wreathsof violets and roses." The

labrys ''Labrys'' () is, according to Plutarch (''Quaestiones Graecae'' 2.302a), the Lydian language, Lydian word for the Axe#Components, double-bitted axe. In Greek it was called (''pélekys''). The plural of ''labrys'' is ''labryes'' (). Etymology ...

lesbian flag, created in 1999 by graphic designer Sean Campbell, features a labrys superimposed on the inverted

black triangle Black triangle may refer to: Places * Black Triangle (region), across Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, long characterized by extremely high levels of pollution * Black triangle, the nickname given to the area south of Montreal affected by a ...

set against a violet background.

Flags

References

* * * * * * * * *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Violet (Color) Optical spectrum Secondary colors Tertiary colors Rainbow colors LGBTQ symbols

Etymology and definitions

Relationship to purple

In science

Optics

Chemistry – pigments and dyes

Zoology

Botany

In history and art

Prehistory and antiquity

Middle Ages and Renaissance

18th and 19th centuries

20th and 21st centuries

In culture

Popularity

Royalty and luxury

Vanity, extravagance and individualism

Heian period

New Age

Religion

Politics

Lesbianism

Flags

See also

References

External links