Shades of purple
There are numerous variations of the color purple, a sampling of which is shown below.
In common English usage, purple is a range of hues of color occurring between red and blue.
However, the meaning of the term purple is not well defined. There is confusion about the meaning of the terms purple and violet even among native speakers of English. Many native speakers of English in the United States refer to the blue-dominated spectral color beyond blue as purple, but the same color is referred to as violet by many native English speakers in the United Kingdom. The full range of colors between red and blue is referred to by the term purple in some British authoritative texts, whereas the same range of colors is referred to by the term violet in some other texts.
The confusion about the range of meanings of the terms violet and purple is even larger when including other languages and historical texts.
Since this Wikipedia page contains contributions from authors from different countries and different native languages, this Wikipedia page is likely not to be consistent in the use of the color terms purple and violet.
In formal color theory, purple colors often refer to the colors on the line of purples on the CIE chromaticity diagram, i.e., any color between red and violet, not including either red or violet themselves.
The first recorded use of purple as a color name in English was in 975 AD. According to color theory, purple is considered a cool color.
Historical development of purple
Tyrian purple: Classical antiquity
See also under Purple#In art, history and fashion the section "In prehistory and the ancient world: Tyrian purple"File:Justinian.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Byzantine Emperor Justinian I clad in Tyrian purple; 6th-century mosaic in the Basilica of San Vitale
"Tyrian purple" is the contemporary English name of the color that in Latin is denominated "purpura". Other contemporary English names for purpura are "imperial purple" and "royal purple". The English name "purple" itself originally denominated the specific color purpura. Purpura is the color of a dye extracted from a mollusk found on the shores of the city of Tyre in ancient Phoenicia, which color in classical antiquity was a symbol of royalty and political authority because only the very wealthy could afford it, including the Roman Emperors. Therefore, Tyrian purple was also denominated "imperial purple".
Tyrian purple may have been discovered as early as during the Minoan civilization. Alexander the Great, when giving imperial audiences as the emperor of Macedonia; the emperor of the Seleucid Empire; and the kings of Ptolemaic Egypt all wore Tyrian purple. The imperial robes of Roman emperors were of Tyrian purple trimmed in metallic gold thread. The badge of office of a Roman Senator was a stripe of Tyrian purple on his white toga. Tyrian purple was continued in use by the emperors of the Eastern Roman Empire until its final collapse in 1453.
The tone of Tyrian purple displayed above is that tone of Tyrian purple which was the color of "clotted blood", which was considered the tone having the most prestige in ancient Greece and Rome, as recorded by Pliny the Elder. However, the actual tone varied depending on how the dye was formulated. Lesser royal houses that wanted to economize could mix Tyrian purple dye with the much less expensive indigo to create a color closer to violet.
Han purple: Ancient China
Han purple is a type of artificial pigment found in China between 500 BC and AD 220. It was used in the decoration of the Terracotta Army.Royal purple: 17th century
The color royal purple is a tone of purple that is bluer than the ancient Tyrian purple.The first recorded use of royal purple as a color name in English was in 1661.
In 1990, royal purple was formulated as one of the Crayola crayon colors.
Mauveine: 1860s–1890s
Mauveine was first named in 1856. Chemist Sir William Henry Perkin, then eighteen, was attempting to create artificial quinine. An unexpected residue caught his eye, which turned out to be the first aniline dye—specifically, Perkin's mauve or mauveine is sometimes called aniline purple. Perkin was so successful in recommending his discovery to the dyestuffs industry that his biography by Simon Garfield is titled Mauve. As mauveine faded easily, contemporary understanding of mauve is as a lighter, less saturated color than it was originally known."Mauveine" was named after the mauve colored mallow flower, even though it is a much deeper tone of purple than mauve. The term "Mauve" in the late 19th century could refer to either the deep, rich color of the dye or the light color of the flower. Mauve came into great vogue when in 1862 Queen Victoria appeared at the Royal Exhibition in a mauve silk gown—dyed with mauveine. By 1890, this color had become so pervasive in fashion that author Thomas Beer used it in the title of his book about the 1890s, The Mauve Decade.
Artists' pigment purple (red-violet): 1930s
In some parts of the world, 'Royal purple' or the dark violet color known as generic purple is the common layman's idea of purple, but these color terms carry different meanings in different parts of the world. Even among modern native speakers of English there is confusion about the terms purple and violet. In the United Kingdom, many native speakers of English refer to the blue-dominated spectral color beyond blue as violet, but this color is called purple by many speakers in the United States.In some texts the term violet refers to any color between red and blue. However, there are also authoritative texts from the United Kingdom in which this same range of colors is referred to by the term purple.
When including languages other than English, and epochs other than the modern period, the uncertainty about the meanings of the color terms violet and purple is even larger. Since this Wikipedia page contains contributions from authors from different countries and different native languages, it is likely to be not consistent in the use of the color terms violet and purple.
Artists that happen to follow Munsell color system, may regard purple as being synonymous with the red-violet color, represented by the web color medium violet red. Munsell included purple as a color hue in his color system, but he did not do so for violet as he did not need it as a label for his system. If defined as blue-dominated colors between blue and red, violet colors in Munsell's system would be classified as having the 7.5PB and 10.0PB hue, which is confirmed in visual experiments
The truly purple color, defined as being within the range of the red-dominated colors between red and blue, is sometimes confusingly labeled as red-violet color, or more correctly artist's purple. It is the pigment color that would be on a pigment color color wheel between pigment violet and pigment magenta. In the Munsell color system, this color at its maximum chroma of 12 is called Red-Purple, or more specifically Munsell 5RP.
Artists' pigments and colored pencils labeled as purple are typically colored the red-violet color. On an RYB color wheel, the so-called red-violet color is the color between red and violet.
Electric purple: 2000s
This color, electric purple, is precisely halfway between violet and magenta and thus fits the artistic definition of purple.Using additive colors such as those on computer screens, it is possible to create a much brighter purple than with pigments where the mixing subtracts frequencies from the component primary colors. The equivalent color on a computer to the pigment color red-violet shown above would be this electric purple, i.e. the much brighter purple reproduced on the screen of a computer. This color is pure purple conceived as computer artists conceive it, as the color on the color wheel halfway between color wheel violet and electric magenta. Thus, electric purple is the purest and brightest purple that it is possible to display on a computer screen. Its RGB code is.
An old name for this color, used by Robert Ridgway in his 1912 book on color nomenclature, Color Standards and Color Nomenclature, is true purple.
Web colors
Purple (HTML/CSS color) (patriarch)
This purple used in HTML and CSS actually is deeper and has a more reddish hue than the X11 color purple shown below as purple , which is bluer and brighter. This is one of the very few clashes between web and X11 colors.This color may be called HTML/CSS purple. It seems likely that this color was chosen as the web color purple because its hue is exactly halfway between red and blue and its value is exactly halfway between white and black.
A traditional name sometimes used for this tone of purple is patriarch. The first recorded use of patriarch as a color name in English was in 1925.
Purple (X11 color) (veronica)
The color purple, as defined in the X11 color names in 1987, is brighter and bluer than the HTML/CSS web color purple shown above as purple . This is one of the very few clashes between web and X11 colors.This color can be called X11 purple.
The traditional name for this tone of purple is veronica. The first recorded use of veronica as a color name in English was in 1919.