Magenta () is a purple- red color. On

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 ...

s of the RGB (additive) and CMY (subtractive) color models, it is located precisely midway between

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...

and red. It is one of the four colors of ink used in color printing by most color printers, along with

yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In t ...

cyan Cyan () is the color between blue and green on the visible spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a predominant wavelength between 500 and 520 nm, between the wavelengths of green and blue. In the subtractive color system, or CMYK c ...

, and

black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

to make all the other colors. Magenta is a color made by mixing red and blue. The tone of magenta used in

printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...

, printer's magenta, is redder than the magenta of the RGB (additive) model, the former being closer to

rose A rose is either a woody perennial plant, perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred Rose species, species and Garden roses, tens of thousands of cultivar ...

. Magenta took its name from an

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 ...

dye made and patented in 1859 by the French chemist François-Emmanuel Verguin, who originally called it ''fuchsine''. It was renamed to celebrate the French-Sardinian victory under French Emperor

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...

at the Battle of Magenta against the larger army of the Austrian Empire on 4 June 1859 near the Italian town 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 ...

, at the time in Austria. This battle was decisive in liberating Italy from Austrian domination. A virtually identical color, called roseine, was created in 1860 by two British chemists, Edward Chambers Nicholson, and George Maule. The web color magenta is also called fuchsia.

In optics and color science

Magenta is an extra-spectral color, meaning that no color of the visible spectrum has magenta's hue. Magenta is associated with perception of

spectral power distribution In radiometry, photometry (optics), photometry, and color science, a spectral power distribution (SPD) measurement describes the Power (physics), power per unit area per unit wavelength of an illumination (lighting), illumination (radiant exitan ...

s concentrated mostly in two bands: longer wavelength reddish components and shorter wavelength blueish components. Magenta is the complementary color of green; thus, mixing one specific shade of magenta light and one specific shade of green light will result in white light. In the RGB color system, used to create all the colors on a television or computer display, magenta is a secondary color, made by combining equal amounts of red and blue light at a high intensity. Cone-fundamentals-with-srgb-spectrum

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 color printing, it is one of the three primary colors, along with cyan and yellow, used to print all the rest of the colors. If magenta, cyan, and yellow are printed on top of each other on a page, they make black. If combined, magenta ink plus ink of its complementary color, green, will result in a dark brown or black. In terms of

physiology Physiology (; ) is the science, scientific study of function (biology), functions and mechanism (biology), mechanisms in a life, living system. As a branches of science, subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ syst ...

, the color is stimulated in the brain when the eye reports input from short wave blue

cone cell Cone cells or cones are photoreceptor cells in the retina of the vertebrate eye. Cones are active in daylight conditions and enable photopic vision, as opposed to rod cells, which are active in dim light and enable scotopic vision. Most v ...

s along with a sub-sensitivity of the long wave cones which respond secondarily to that same deep blue color, but with little or no input from the middle wave cones. The brain interprets that combination as some hue of magenta or purple, depending on the relative strengths of the cone responses. In the Munsell color system, magenta is called ''red-purple''. File:Blue and red make magenta.png, 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 to make colors on computer and television displays, magenta is created by the combination of equal amounts of blue and red light. File:RGB color wheel.svg, In the RGB color wheel of additive colors, magenta is midway between blue and red. File:SubtractiveColor.svg, In the

, used in color printing,

, magenta, and

combined make black. In practice, since the inks are not perfect, some black ink is added. File:Blended colour wheel.svg, Visible spectrum wrapped to join violet and red in an additive mixture of magenta. In reality, violet and red are at opposite ends of the spectrum and have very different wavelengths.

Fuchsia and magenta

The

web colors Web colors are colors used in Web design, displaying web pages on the World Wide Web; they can be described by way of three methods: a color may be specified as an RGB color model, RGB triplet, in hexadecimal format (a ''hex triplet'') or acc ...

fuchsia and magenta are identical, made by mixing the same proportions of blue and red light. In design and printing, there is more variation. The French version of fuchsia in the

and in printing contains a higher proportion of red than the American version of fuchsia.

Gallery

File:DoubleFuchsias wb.jpg, The flower of the Fuchsia plant was the original inspiration for the dye, which was later renamed magenta dye. File:Basic Fuchsine Crystals.JPG, Magenta took its name in 1860 from this aniline dye that was originally called " fuchsine", after the fuchsia flower. File:NIEdot367.jpg, Magenta has been used in color printing since the late nineteenth century. Images are printed in three colors; magenta, cyan, and yellow, which when combined can make all colors. This image from 1902 is using the alternative RYB color model instead. File:Refill Ink Kit Color crop.jpg, Color printers today use magenta, cyan, and yellow ink to produce the full range of colors. File:Komplementärfarben magenta auf grün.svg, Magenta is the complementary color of

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...

. The two colors combined in the RGB model form white. File:Marinir Indonesia.png, The Indonesian Marine Corps beret color is magenta purple.

History

Fuchsine and magenta dye (1859)

The color magenta was the result of the industrial chemistry revolution of the mid-nineteenth century, which began with the invention by William Perkin of mauveine in 1856, which was the first synthetic aniline dye. The enormous commercial success of the dye and the new color it produced, mauve, inspired other chemists in Europe to develop new colors made from aniline dyes. Originally referenced from French edition pp. 311–312 In France, François-Emmanuel Verguin, the director of the chemical factory of Louis Rafard near

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

, tried many different formulae before finally in late 1858 or early 1859, mixing aniline with

carbon tetrachloride Carbon tetrachloride, also known by many other names (such as carbon tet for short and tetrachloromethane, also IUPAC nomenclature of inorganic chemistry, recognised by the IUPAC), is a chemical compound with the chemical formula CCl4. It is a n ...

, producing a reddish-purple dye which he called " fuchsine", after the color of the flower of the fuchsia plant. He quit the Rafard factory and took his color to a firm of paint manufacturers, Francisque and Joseph Renard, who began to manufacture the dye in 1859. In the same year, two British chemists, Edward Chambers Nicholson and George Maule, working at the laboratory of the paint manufacturer George Simpson, located in Walworth, south of London, made another aniline dye with a similar red-purple color, which they began to manufacture in 1860 under the name "roseine". In 1860, they changed the name of the color to "magenta", in honor of the Battle of Magenta fought by the armies of France and

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; ; ) is the Mediterranean islands#By area, second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, and one of the Regions of Italy, twenty regions of Italy. It is located west of the Italian Peninsula, north of Tunisia an ...

against Austrians at Magenta, Lombardy the year before, and the new color became a commercial success. Starting in 1935, the family of quinacridone dyes was developed. These have colors ranging from red to violet, so nowadays a quinacridone dye is often used for magenta. Various tones of magenta—light, bright, brilliant, vivid, rich, or deep—may be formulated by adding varying amounts of white to quinacridone artist's paints. Another dye used for magenta is Lithol Rubine BK. One of its uses is as a food coloring.

Process magenta (pigment magenta; printer's magenta) (1890s)

color printing Color printing or colour printing is the reproduction of an image or text in color (as opposed to simpler black and white or monochrome printing). History of color printing Woodblock printing on textiles preceded printing on paper in both Ea ...

, the color called process magenta, pigment magenta, or printer's magenta is one of the three primary pigment colors which, along with

and

, constitute the three subtractive primary colors of pigment. (The secondary colors of pigment are blue, green, and red.) As such, the hue magenta is the complement of

: magenta

pigment A pigment is a powder used to add or alter color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly solubility, insoluble and reactivity (chemistry), chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored sub ...

s absorb green light; thus magenta and green are opposite colors. The

CMYK 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 ...

printing process was invented in the 1890s, when newspapers began to publish color

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

s. Process magenta is not an RGB color, and there is no fixed conversion from CMYK primaries to RGB. Different formulations are used for printer's ink, so there may be variations in the printed color that is pure magenta ink.

Web colors magenta and fuchsia

The web color magenta is one of the three secondary colors in the

. On the RGB color wheel, magenta is the color between

and violet, and halfway between red and

. This color is called ''magenta'' in X11 and ''fuchsia'' in

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 ( ...

. In the RGB color model, it is created by combining equal intensities of red and blue light. The two web colors magenta and fuchsia are exactly the same color. Sometimes the web color magenta is called ''electric magenta'' or ''electronic magenta''. While the magenta used in printing and the web color have the same name, they have important differences. Process magenta (the color used for magenta printing ink—also called printer's or pigment magenta) is much less vivid than the color magenta achievable on a computer screen. CMYK printing technology cannot accurately reproduce on paper the color on the computer screen. When the web color magenta is reproduced on paper, it is called fuchsia and it is physically impossible for it to appear on paper as vivid as on a computer screen. Colored pencils and crayons called "magenta" are usually colored the color of ''process magenta'' (''printer's magenta'').

In science and culture

In art

* Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) used a shade of magenta in 1890 in his portrait of Marie Lagadu, and in some of his South Seas paintings. *

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...

and the members of the Fauvist movement used magenta and other non-traditional colors to surprise viewers, and to move their emotions through the use of bold colors. * Since the mid-1960s, water based fluorescent magenta paint has been available to paint psychedelic

black light A blacklight, also called a UV-A light, Wood's lamp, or ultraviolet light, is a lamp (fixture), lamp that emits long-wave (UV-A) ultraviolet light and very little visible light. One type of lamp has a violet light filter, filter material, eith ...

painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

s. (Fluorescent cerise, fluorescent chartreuse yellow, fluorescent blue, and fluorescent green.) File:Bouguereau-Psyche.jpg, Magenta, along with mauve, made with the newly discovered aniline dyes, became a popular fashion color in the second half of the nineteenth century. It appeared in art in this 1890 work, ''Psyche'', by Bouguereau. File:Paul Gauguin 099.jpg, Paul Gauguin, ''Portrait of Marie Lagadu'' (1890). File:Matissetoits.gif,

, ''Les toits de Collioure'' (1905). Henri Matisse and the other painters of the Fauvist movement were the first to make a major use of magenta to surprise and make an impact on the emotions of the viewer. File:1967 Mantra-Rock Dance Avalon poster.jpg, In the 1960s, magenta was a popular color in psychedelic art, such as this concert poster for the Avalon Ballroom in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

(1967).

In literature

* The color plays a central role in Craig Laurance Gidney's novel ''A Spectral Hue''.

In film

* The titular alien entity in the 2019 horror film '' Color Out of Space'', an adaptation of the 1927

H. P. Lovecraft Howard Phillips Lovecraft (, ; August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of Weird fiction, weird, Science fiction, science, fantasy, and horror fiction. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos. Born in Provi ...

short story '' The Colour Out of Space'', is depicted as being magenta due to the color's extra-spectral status.

In astronomy

* Astronomers have reported that spectral class T brown dwarfs (the ones with the coolest temperatures except for the recently discovered Y brown dwarfs) are colored magenta because of absorption by

sodium Sodium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Na (from Neo-Latin ) and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 element, group 1 of the peri ...

and

potassium Potassium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol K (from Neo-Latin ) and atomic number19. It is a silvery white metal that is soft enough to easily cut with a knife. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmospheric oxygen to ...

atom Atoms are the basic particles of the chemical elements. An atom consists of a atomic nucleus, nucleus of protons and generally neutrons, surrounded by an electromagnetically bound swarm of electrons. The chemical elements are distinguished fr ...

s of light in the green portion of the spectrum. File:T-dwarf-nasa-hurt.png, Artist's vision of a spectral class T brown dwarf

In biology: magenta insects, birds, fish, and mammals

File:Reef0484.jpg,

Coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

from the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

File:Andean Flamingo Adult, Phoenicopterus andinus.jpg, An Andean flamingo, ('' Phoenicopterus andinus'') File:Anisoptera Ana Cotta 2830198213.jpg, A

dragonfly A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of dragonflies are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threat ...

, or Anisoptera Ana Cotta File:Pseudanthias tuka.jpg, '' Pseudanthias'' tuka, a reef fish from the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

In botany

Magenta is a common color for flowers, particularly in the tropics and sub-tropics. Because magenta is the complementary color of green, magenta flowers have the highest contrast with the green foliage, and therefore are more visible to the animals needed for their pollination. File:Orchid Phalaenopsis hybrid.jpg,

Orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Orchids are cosmopolitan plants that are found in almost every habitat on Eart ...

Phalaenopsis File:Rhododendron sp. 016.JPG,

Rhododendron ''Rhododendron'' (; : ''rhododendra'') is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the Ericaceae, heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are native to eastern Asia and the Himalayan ...

File:Clematis patens sunset 02.JPG, Clematis "Sunset" File:Geraniaceae - Geranium sanguineum-1.JPG, '' Geranium sanguineum'' File:Dahlia - "Hillcrest Royal" cultivar.jpg, Dahlia "Hillcrest Royal" File:Rambler Roses Cape Cod.jpg, Rambler

File:Syringa 'Paul Deschanel' 02.jpg, Syringa "Paul Deschanel" File:Lilium 'Malinoviy Zvon' 03.JPG, Lily "Malinoviy Zvon" File:Blüte Sommerphlox, Kategorie-Polemoniaceae.JPG, Polemoniaceae, or phlox File:Cactus plant petailed.jpg, A cactus flower File:Achillea 'Staroe Burgundskoe' 02.jpg, Achillea "Staroe Burgundskoe" File:2006-10-18Mirabilis jalapa02.jpg, '' Mirabilis jalapa'' "Four O'Clock Flower"

In business

The German telecommunications company

Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom AG (, ; often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a partially state-owned German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. It was formed in 199 ...

uses a magenta

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name that it represents, as in ...

. It has sought to prevent use of any similar color by other businesses, even those in unrelated fields, such as the insurance company Lemonade.

In public transport

Magenta was the English name of Tokyo's Oedo subway line color. It was later changed to ''

ruby Ruby is a pinkish-red-to-blood-red-colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapph ...

''. It is also the color of the Metropolitan line of the

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or as the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The Undergro ...

In transportation

In aircraft

autopilot An autopilot is a system used to control the path of a vehicle without requiring constant manual control by a human operator. Autopilots do not replace human operators. Instead, the autopilot assists the operator's control of the vehicle, allow ...

systems, the path that pilot or plane should follow to its destination is usually indicated in cockpit displays using the color magenta.

In numismatics

The

Reserve Bank of India Reserve Bank of India, abbreviated as RBI, is the central bank of the Republic of India, and regulatory body responsible for regulation of the Indian banking system and Indian rupee, Indian currency. Owned by the Ministry of Finance (India), Min ...

(RBI) issued a Magenta colored banknote of ₹2000 denomination on 8 November 2016 under Mahatma Gandhi New Series. This is the highest currency note printed by RBI that is in active circulation in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. Image:India_new_2000_INR,_MG_series,_2016,_obverse.jpg, Indian 2000 rupee note, obverse Image:India_new_2000_INR,_MG_series,_2016,_reverse.jpg, Indian 2000 rupee note, reverse

In vexillology and heraldry

Magenta is an extremely rare color to find on heraldic flags and coats of arms, since its adoption dates back to relatively recent times. However, there are some examples of its use: File:Cantabrian_Lábaru_Flag.svg, Cantabrian Labarum,

Cantabria Cantabria (, ; ) is an autonomous community and Provinces of Spain, province in northern Spain with Santander, Cantabria, Santander as its capital city. It is called a , a Nationalities and regions of Spain, historic community, in its current ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

. File:Blason ville fr Magenta (Marne).svg, Canting arms of the commune of Magenta,

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 ...

. File:Flag of Cartago (Valle del Cauca).svg, Flag of the municipality of Cartago,

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

In politics

File:Flag of the NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum.svg, The Austrian NEOS party flag File:Logo der Freien Demokraten.svg * Throughout much of Europe, the color of magenta (or variants of such, such as

Pink Pink is a pale tint of red, the color of the Dianthus plumarius, pink flower. It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most often associated with charm, p ...

Amaranth ''Amaranthus'' is a cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan group of more than 50 species which make up the genus of annual plant, annual or short-lived perennial plants collectively known as amaranths. Some names include "prostrate pigweed" an ...

) is used to symbolise

social liberalism Social liberalism is a political philosophy and variety of liberalism that endorses social justice, social services, a mixed economy, and the expansion of civil and political rights, as opposed to classical liberalism which favors limited g ...

classical liberalism Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics and civil liberties under the rule of law, with special emphasis on individual autonomy, limited governmen ...

* The color magenta is used to symbolize

anti-racism Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate ...

by the

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

-based anti-racism Magenta Foundation.Magenta Foundation
Organization website
. * In Danish politics, magenta is the color of Det Radikale Venstre, the Danish social-liberal party. * In Austrian politics, it is used to represent NEOS – The New Austria and Liberal Forum, a social liberal party. * In Belgium, it is used by DéFI, a social liberal party. * In Germany, Magenta is one of the colors of the Free Democratic Party, or FDP.

References

External links

Pictures of actual aniline dye samples in various shades of magenta.

Magenta is a product of the brain rather than a spectral frequency

Color Mixing and the Mystery of Magenta
, Royal Institution video {{Color topics Primary colors Secondary colors Tertiary colors Optical spectrum Web colors