Fuchsia (, ) is a vivid pinkish- red

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 ...

, named after the color of the

flower Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

of the fuchsia plant, which was named by a French botanist, Charles Plumier, after the 16th-century German botanist Leonhart Fuchs. The color fuchsia was introduced as the color of a new aniline dye called fuchsine, patented in 1859 by the French chemist François-Emmanuel Verguin. The fuchsine dye was renamed

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 ...

later in the same year, to celebrate a victory of the French army at the Battle of Magenta on 4 June 1859 near the Italian city of that name. The first recorded use of ''fuchsia'' as a color name in English was in 1892.

In print and design

In color printing and design, there are more variations between magenta and fuchsia. Fuchsia is usually a more pinkish-purplish color, whereas magenta is more reddish. Fuchsia flowers themselves contain a wide variety of purples. Fuchsia was a very popular aesthetic for fashion during the 2000s.

Fuchsine

The first synthetic dye of the color fuchsia, called fuchsine, was patented in 1859 by François-Emmanuel Verguin. It was later renamed

, and became highly popular under that name. File:Basic Fuchsine in aqueous solution.jpg, A sample of fuchsine dye in an aqueous solution File:Basic Fuchsine Crystals.JPG, Crystals of fuchsine dye and the color they produce

Fuchsia (web color)

In the system of additive colors, 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 to create all the colors on a computer or television display, the colors magenta and fuchsia are exactly the same, and have the same hex number, #FF00FF. The name fuchsia is used on the

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

web color list for this color, while the name

is used on the X11 web color list. They are both composed the same way, by combining an equal amount of blue and red light at full brightness, as shown in the image on the left.

Variations of fuchsia

French fuchsia

At right is displayed the color French fuchsia, which is the tone of fuchsia called ''fuchsia'' in a color list popular in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Fuchsia rose

Fuchsia rose is the

that was chosen as the 2001 Pantone color of the year by Pantone.

Red-purple

Red-purple is the color that is called ''Rojo-Púrpura'' (the Spanish word for "red-purple") in the ''Guía de coloraciones'' (''Guide to colorations'') by Rosa Gallego and Juan Carlos Sanz, a color dictionary published in 2005 that is widely popular in the Hispanophone realm. Although ''red-purple'' is a seldom-used color name in English, in Spanish it is regarded one of the major tones of purple.

Fuchsia purple

The color fuchsia purple is displayed at right. The source of this color is the "Pantone Textile Paper eXtended (TPX)" color list, color #18-2436 TPX—Fuchsia Purple.

Deep fuchsia

Deep fuchsia is the color that is called ''fuchsia'' in the List of Crayola crayon colors.

Fandango

Displayed at right is the color fandango. The first recorded use of ''fandango'' as a color name in English was in 1925.

Antique fuchsia

Displayed at right is the color antique fuchsia. The first recorded use of ''antique fuchsia'' as a color name in English was in 1928. The source of this color is the ''Plochere Color System'', a color system formulated in 1948 that is widely used by

interior designer Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. With a keen eye for detail and a Creativity, creative flair, an ...

s.Plochere Color System:

Crayola color fuchsia

In 1949, the color names of Crayola crayons were reformed and became more scientific, more of the names of the colors of the crayons being based on the names of colors in the original 1930 edition of the ''Dictionary of Color'' and the color names of the Munsell color system. Crayola crayons set up a color naming system similar to that used in the Munsell Color Wheel, except that violet instead of purple was used as the secondary color on the color wheel between red and blue. The web color fuchsia is equivalent to the pure chroma on Munsell Color Wheel of the Munsell color system that is designated as "5RP" (''reddish purple'') i.e., a purple that is shaded toward red (the color we can achieve today with computers is a much more saturated pure color wheel chroma hue than the original color chip shown on the Munsell color wheel diagram in the Munsell color system article). In 1972, a new Crayola crayon color was introduced called ''hot magenta'' which is the closest equivalent to the web color fuchsia in Crayola crayons. (See List of Crayola crayon colors.) The color shown in the color box above is the color "fuchsia" in ''A Dictionary of Color''. That is why the name fuchsia was chosen as the equivalent to one of the three secondary additive primary colors, electric

, because ''A Dictionary of Color'' was the primary reference on color names (besides the ''Munsell Book of Color'') before the introduction of

personal computer A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

s. The color shown above is somewhat brighter than most actual flowers of the fuchsia plant. The color shown as magenta in ''A Dictionary of Color'' is a somewhat different color from the color shown in that book as fuchsia—it is the original color magenta now called ''rich magenta'' or ''magenta (dye)'' (see the article on magenta for a color box displaying a sample of this original magenta).

References

* Philip Ball (2001), ''Bright Earth, Art and the Invention of Colour'', Penguin Group, . (ISBN and page numbers are from the French translation).

Notes and citations

{{Color topics Shades of magenta Shades of red Shades of pink Shades of violet Web colors