Magenta

For other uses, see Magenta (disambiguation).

Magenta is a purplish-red, purplish crimson, or purplish-pink. It is a primary color in color printing, and the complementary color of green.

Magenta is a purplish-red, , purplish-crimson, : or purplish-pink color. It is a primary color in color printing which, combined with cyan, yellow and black in various combinations, can be used to create all other colors. The name comes from the dye magenta, originally called fuchsine, discovered in 1859, and renamed after the 1859 Battle of Magenta near Magenta, Italy. where the French army defeated the Austrians and helped secure the unification of Italy.

In optics and color science

On a traditional color circle, magenta is located mid-way between purple and red.

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. In this system, magenta is the complementary color of green, and combining green and magenta light on a black screen will create white.

In the CMYK color model, used in color printing, it is one of the three primary colors, along with cyan and yellow, used to print all different colors. If magenta, cyan and yellow are printed on top of each other on a page, they make black. In this model, magenta is the complementary color of green, and these two colors have the highest contrast and the greatest harmony. If combined, green and magenta ink will look dark gray or black. The magenta used in color printing, sometimes called process magenta, is a darker shade than the color used on computer screens.

It is an extra-spectral color, meaning that it is not found on the visible spectrum of light and it cannot be generated by a single wavelength of light; rather, it is a mixture of red and blue light.

A purple hue in terms of color theory, magenta is evoked by light having less power in green wavelengths than in blue/violet and red wavelengths (complements of magenta have wavelength 500–530 nm).

In the Munsell color system, magenta is called red–purple.

Fuchsia and Magenta

In optics, fuchsia and magenta are essentially the same color. The web colors fuschia and magenta are identical, and are made by mixing exactly the same proportions of blue and red light. In design and printing, there is a little more variation. The French version of Fuchsia in the RGB color model and in printing contains a higher proportion of red than the American version of fuchsia. Fuchsia flowers themselves, which inspired both colors, have a variety of colors, from fuschsia to purple to red and pink.

Gallery

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  The flower of Fuchsia plant was the original inspiration for the dye which was later renamed magenta dye.

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  Magenta took its name in 1860 from this aniline dye that was originally called fuchsine, after the fuchsia flower.

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  In the RGB color model, used to make colors on computer and TV displays, magenta is created by the combination of equal amounts of blue and red light.

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  In the RGB color wheel of additive colors, magenta is midway between blue and red.

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  In the CMYK color model, used in color printing, cyan, magenta and yellow combined make black. In pratice, since the inks are not perfect, some black ink is added.

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  Magenta has been used in color printing since the late 19th century. Images are printed in three colors; magenta, cyan and yellow, which when combined can make all colors. This image is from 1902.

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  Color printers today use magenta, cyan, and yellow ink to produce the full range of colors.

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  Magenta is the complementary color of green. The two colors combined in the RGB model form white. Side-by-side, they provid the highest possible contrast and reinforce each other's brightness.

History

Fuchsine and magenta dye (1860)

Magenta dye
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#CA1F7B
sRGBB    (r, g, b)	(202, 31, 123)
CMYKH   (c, m, y, k)	(3, 100, 3, 0)
HSV       (h, s, v)	(327°, 96%, 34%)
Source	[1]
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

The color magenta was the result of the industrial chemistry revolution of the mid-19th century, which began with the invention by William Perkin of mauveine, the first synthetic aniline dye, in 1856. 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.

In France, Francois-Emmanuel Verguin, the director of the chemical factory of Louis Rafard near Lyon, tried many different formulae before finally in late 1858 or early 1859, mixing aniline with carbon tetrachloride, 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, Chambers Nicolson and Georges 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 fought between the French and Austrians at Magenta, Italy the year before, and the new color became a commercial success. Before printer's magenta was invented in the 1890s for CMYK printing, and electric magenta was invented in the 1980s for computer displays, these two artificially engineered colors were preceded by the color displayed at right, which is the color originally called fuchsine made from coal tar dyes in the year 1859. The name of the color was soon changed to magenta, being named after the Battle of Magenta fought at Magenta, Lombardy-Venetia.

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.

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

Process magenta (subtractive primary, sRGB approximation)
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#FF0090
sRGBB    (r, g, b)	(255, 0, 144)
CMYKH   (c, m, y, k)	(0, 100, 0, 0)
HSV       (h, s, v)	(320°, 100%, 100%)
Source	[2] CMYK
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

In color printing, the color called process magenta, pigment magenta, or printer's magenta is one of the three primary pigment colors which, along with yellow and cyan, 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 green: magenta pigments absorb green light; thus magenta and green are opposite colors.

The CMYK printing process was invented in the 1890s, when newspapers began to publish color comic strips.

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 can be variations in the printed color that is pure magenta ink. A typical formulation of process magenta is shown in the color box at right.

The web colors magenta and fuchsia

Magenta (Fuchsia)
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#FF00FF
sRGBB    (r, g, b)	(255, 0, 255)
CMYKH   (c, m, y, k)	(0, 100, 0, 0)
HSV       (h, s, v)	(300°, 100%, 100%)
Source	X11
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte) H: Normalized to [0–100] (hundred)

At right is the web color magenta. It is one of the three secondary colors in the RGB color model. On the RGB color wheel, magenta is the color between rose and violet, and halfway between red and blue.

This color is called magenta in X11 and fuchsia in HTML. 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 comptuer 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) shown above.

Other variations and shades of magenta

Main article: Variations of magenta

Wrapping the spectrum into a color wheel

If the visible spectrum is wrapped to form a color wheel, magenta (additive secondary) appears midway between red and blue: However, it should be noted that this is not an accurate depiction of the visible spectrum of light. Blue and red, the two components of magenta, are actually at opposite ends of the visible spectrum, and have very different wavelengths. The additive secondary color magenta, as noted above, is made by combining blue and red light at equal intensity; it is not on the actual spectrum.

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Visible spectrum wrapped to join violet and red in an additive mixture of magenta

In science and culture

In art

• Shades of magenta began to appear in art soon after its was introduced. 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 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 paintings. (Fluorescent cerise, fluorescent chartreuse yellow, fluorescent blue, and fluorescent green.)

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  Magenta, along with mauve, made with the newly-discovered aniline dyes, became a popular fashion color in the second half of the 19th century. It appeared in art in this 1890 work, Psyche, by Bouguereau.

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  Paul Gauguin, Portrait of Marie Lagadu (1890).

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  Henri Matisse, 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.

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  In the 1960s, magenta was a popular color in psychedelic art, such sa this concert poster for the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco (1967).

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 and potassium atoms of light in the green portion of the spectrum.

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  Artist's vision of a spectral class T brown dwarf

In biology: magenta insects, birds, fish and animals

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  Coral from the Persian Gulf

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  An Andean flamingo, (Phoenicopterus andinus )

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  A dragonfly, or Anisoptera Ana Cotta

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  Pseudanthias tuka, a reef fish from the Indian Ocean.

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 insects needed for their pollination.

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  Orchid Phalaenopsis

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  rhododendron.

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  Clematis "Sunset".

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  Cape primrose (Primulaceae).

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  geranium sanguineum

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  Dahlia "Hillcrest Royal"

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  Rambler rose

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  Syringa "Paul Deschanel"

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  Lily "Malinoviy Zvon"

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  Polemoniaceae, or Phlox

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  A cactus flower

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  Achillea "Staroe Burgundskoe"

In parapsychology

• To psychics who claim to be able to observe the aura with their third eye, someone who has a magenta aura is usually described as being artistic and creative. It is reported that typical occupations for someone with a magenta aura would be such professions as artist, art dealer, actor, author, costume designer, or set designer.

In politics

• The color magenta is used to symbolize anti-racism by the Amsterdam-based anti-racism Magenta Foundation.

See also

• Fuchsia (color)
• List of colors
• Rose
• Variations of magenta

References

• Philip Ball (2001), Bright Earth, Art and the Invention of Colour, Penguin Group, ISBN 978-2-7541-0503-3. (ISBN and page numbers are from the French translation).

External links

• How the color magenta was discovered in 1859 through research into coal tar (aniline) dyes.
• Pictures of actual aniline dye samples in various shades of magenta.
• Magenta is a product of the brain rather than a spectral frequency
• Colour Mixing and the Mystery of Magenta, Royal Institution video