Fuchsia (, ) is a vivid

pinkish Pink colors are usually light or desaturated shades of reds, roses, and magentas which are created on computer and television screens using the RGB color model and in printing with the CMYK color model. As such, it is an arbitrary classifica ...

red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–750 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a seconda ...

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 ''Fuchsia'' ( ) is a genus of flowering plants that consists mostly of shrubs or small trees. Almost 110 species of ''Fuchsia'' are recognized; the vast majority are native to South America, but a few occur north through Central America to Mex ...

plant, which was named by a French botanist,

Charles Plumier Charles Plumier (; 20 April 1646 – 20 November 1704) was a French botanist after whom the frangipani genus '' Plumeria'' is named. Plumier is considered one of the most important of the botanical explorers of his time. He made three botanizing ...

, after the 16th-century German botanist

Leonhart Fuchs Leonhart Fuchs (; 17 January 1501 – 10 May 1566), sometimes spelled Leonhard Fuchs and cited in Latin as ''Leonhartus Fuchsius'', was a German physician and botanist. His chief notability is as the author of a large book about plants and thei ...

. The color fuchsia was introduced as the color of a new

aniline dye 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 ind ...

called

fuchsine Fuchsine (sometimes spelled fuchsin) or rosaniline hydrochloride is a magenta dye with chemical formula C20H19N3·HCl.

, 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 The Battle of Magenta was fought on 4 June 1859 near the town of Magenta in the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, a crown land of the Austrian Empire, during the Second Italian War of Independence. It resulted in a French-Sardinian victory under ...

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 File:2000s decade montage3.png, From top left, clockwise: The Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center (1973–2001), World Trade Center on fire and the Statue of Liberty on the left during the September 11 attacks, terrorist attacks on Sep ...

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 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X originated as part of Project Athena at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. The X protocol has been at ...

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 Pantone LLC (stylized as PANTONE) is an American limited liability company headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey, and best known for its Pantone Matching System (PMS), a proprietary color order system used in a variety of industries, notably gr ...

Red-purple

Red-purple is the color that is called ''Rojo-Púrpura'' (the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

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 Hispanophone refers to anything related to the Spanish language. In a cultural, rather than merely linguistic sense, the notion of "Hispanophone" goes further than the above definition. The Hispanic culture is the legacy of the vast and prolonge ...

realm. Although ''red-purple'' is a seldom-used color name in English, in Spanish it is regarded one of the major tones of

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 ...

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 Since the introduction of Crayola drawing crayons by Binney & Smith in 1903, more than 200 colors have been produced in a wide variety of assortments. The table below represents all of the colors found in regular Crayola assortments from 1903 t ...

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 The Munsell color system is a color space that specifies colors based on three properties of color: hue (basic color), value (lightness), and colorfulness, chroma (color intensity). It was created by Albert Henry Munsell, Albert H. Munsell in the ...

. Crayola crayons set up a color naming system similar to that used in the Munsell Color Wheel, except that

violet Violet may refer to: Common meanings * Violet (color), a spectral color with wavelengths shorter than blue * One of a list of plants known as violet, particularly: ** ''Viola'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants Places United States * Vi ...

instead of

was used as the secondary color 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 ...

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

(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

.) 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