Mauve (Wikipedia Research Note)

Mauve

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauve

Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the color mauve. For the Dutch painter, see Anton Mauve. For other uses, see Mauve (disambiguation).

Mallow wildflower

Mauve
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#E0B0FF
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(224, 176, 255)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(276°, 31%, 97%)
Source		[Unsourced]
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

Mauve (pronounced /ˈmoʊv/, rhymes with "grove";^[1] from the French form of Malva "mallow") is a pale lavender-lilac color, one of many in the range of purples.

Mauve is more grey and more blue than a pale tint of magenta would be. Many pale wildflowers called "blue" are actually mauve. Sometimes mauve can be considered a dirty pink or a shade of purple.

Mauve can also be described as pale violet.

Another name for this color is mallow.

The first recorded use of mallow as a color name in English was in 1611. ^[2]

Contents [hide] 1 Mauveine, the first aniline dye 2 Variations 2.1 Light mauve 2.2 Opera mauve 2.3 Mauve taupe 2.4 Old mauve 3 Shades of mauve color comparison chart 4 In nature 5 In human culture 5.1 Decade nostalgia 5.2 Genomics 5.3 Television 5.4 Comics 5.5 Theatre 6 See also 7 References

[edit] Mauveine, the first aniline dye

Main article: Mauveine

Mauve 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, 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.^[3]. As mauveine faded easily, our contemporary understanding of mauve is as a lighter, less saturated color than it was originally known.^[4]

[edit] Variations

[edit] Light mauve

Light Mauve
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#DCD0FF
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(220, 208, 255)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(255°, 18%, 100 [5]%)
Source		ISCC-NBS
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

At right is displayed the color light mauve.

This color is also called pale lavender. The source of this color is the ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Color Names (1955)--Color dictionary used by stamp collectors to identify the colors of stamps—See sample of the color Lavender (R) #209: [1]

[edit] Opera mauve

Opera Mauve
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#B784A7
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(183, 132, 167)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(276°, 20%, 62%)
Source		ISCC-NBS
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

At right is displayed the color opera mauve.

The first recorded use of opera mauve as a color name in English was in 1927. ^[6]

[edit] Mauve taupe

Mauve Taupe
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#915F6D
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(145, 95, 109)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(285°, 37%, 54%)
Source		ISCC-NBS
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

Main article: Taupe

The color displayed at right is mauve taupe.

The first recorded use of mauve taupe as a color name in English was in 1925. ^[7]

See the article on taupe to see additional shades of taupe.

[edit] Old mauve

Old Mauve
— Color coordinates —
Hex triplet		#673147
RGBB	(r, g, b)	(103, 49, 71)
HSV	(h, s, v)	(336°, 52%, 40[8]%)
Source		ISCC NBS
B: Normalized to [0–255] (byte)

At right is displayed the color old mauve.

The first recorded use of old mauve as a color name in English was in 1925. ^[9]

The source of this color is the ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Color Names (1955)--Color dictionary used by stamp collectors to identify the colors of stamps—See sample of the color Old Mauve (Color Sample #259) displayed on indicated page: [2]

[edit] Shades of mauve color comparison chart

• Light Mauve (Hex: #DCD0FF) (RGB: 220, 208, 255)
• Mauve (Mallow) (Hex: #E0B0FF) (RGB: 224, 176, 255)
• Opera Mauve (Hex: #CA82AF) (RGB: 202, 130, 175)
• Mauve Taupe (Hex: #915F6D) (RGB: 145, 95, 109)
• Old Mauve (Hex: #673147) (RGB: 103, 49, 71)

[edit] In nature

Plants

• The color mauve is named after the mallow flower.

Animals

• Mauve Stingers are a species of jellyfish.

[edit] In human culture

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2007)

[edit] Decade nostalgia

• William Henry Perkin's aniline dye mauveine allowed the widespread use of that color in fashion. By 1890, this color had become so pervasive in fashion that author Thomas Beer used it years later in the title of his famous book about the 1890s, The Mauve Decade^[10]. Perkins's accidental discovery that he was able to make the color purple (mauve) chemically led him to search for ways to make other colors through chemistry. Now, many colors are made chemically instead of taken from natural sources. Chemistry also became a more profitable career.
• Mauve became very popular in the 1890s and became associated with homosexuality because well known figures in the art world during that decade were gay such as author Oscar Wilde and artist Aubrey Beardsley.
• In The Mauve Decade, Beer, looking back on this time, believed the United States was moving away from its New England traditions to a time of "decay and meaningless phrases". Beer's title was inspired by a comment attributed to artist James Whistler: "Mauve is just pink trying to be purple."^[11]

[edit] Genomics

• Mauve is the name of a multiple genome alignment tool under development at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

[edit] Television

• In 1991, the British science fiction, Holly, a character in the TV show Red Dwarf described an alert between blue and red as purple or mauve.^[12]
• In 2005, the British science fiction TV show Doctor Who, mauve is the universal color for danger (Earth is an exception).^[13]
• Television host David Letterman once stated jokingly that "you know somebody is gay if they know the difference between mauve and taupe."

[edit] Comics

• In the November 17, 1995 Dilbert strip, Dilbert asks his Pointy-haired Boss what color the proposed “SQL database” should be, suspecting the latter has no idea what he′s talking about. The boss confirms this in his response, saying “I think mauve has the most RAM”.^[14]

[edit] Theatre

• Mauve is a commonly used color in stage lighting to represent sunsets.
• In Angels in America, Louis identifies the color of the sunset as "purple", to which Belize replies: "Purple? What kind of a homosexual are you, anyway? That's not purple, Mary, that color out there is mauve."
• In Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 1988 musical Into the Woods, Cinderella's stepsisters return from the Prince's ball to comment "Never wear mauve at a ball."

[edit] See also

• List of colors
• Malvaria

[edit] References

1. ^ Brians, Paul. "Mauve". Common Errors in English. Washington State University. http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/mauve.html. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
2. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 198; Color Sample of Mallow: Page 125 Plate 51 Color Sample I3
3. ^ Garfield, S. (2000). Mauve: How One Man Invented a Colour That Changed the World. Faber and Faber, London, UK. ISBN 978-0571201976.
4. ^ http://www.straw.com/sig/dyehist.html
5. ^ web.forrett.com Color Conversion Tool set to hex code #DCD0FF (Light Mauve):
6. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 200; Color Sample Page 107 Plate 42 Color Sample H5--Opera Mauve
7. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 203; Color Sample of Mauve Taupe Page 37 Plate 7 Color Sample C8--Mauve Taupe
8. ^ web.forret.com Color Conversion Tool set to hex code of color #673147 (Old Mauve):
9. ^ Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 200; Color Sample of Old Mauve: Page 109 Plate 46 Color Sample I5
10. ^ Thomas Beer: The mauve decade --American life at the end of the nineteenth century, 1926, at gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca
11. ^ NON-FICTION: Resurrection, Time Magazine, 1926-07-05
12. ^ RED DWARF Season IV Episode 5, "Dimension Jump".
13. ^ "Doctor Who", The Empty Child (2005). IMDB.
14. ^ http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-11-17/