Magenta took its name from ananiline dye made and patented in 1859 by the French chemist François-Emmanuel Verguin, who originally called itfuchsine. It was renamed to celebrate the French-Sardinian victory under French EmperorNapoleon III at theBattle of Magenta against the larger army of the Austrian Empire on 4 June 1859 near the Italian town ofMagenta, at the time in Austria. This battle was decisive inliberating Italy from Austrian domination.[4][5]
A virtually identical color, called roseine, was created in 1860 by two British chemists, Edward Chambers Nicholson, and George Maule.
Magenta is thecomplementary 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 cell response curves. Note that a magenta response is elicited in the brain by stimulating S and L cones and little to no M stimulus.
In theCMYK color model, 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 ofphysiology, the color is stimulated in the brain when the eye reports input from short wave bluecone cells 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 theRGB color model, used to make colors on computer and television displays, magenta is created by the combination of equal amounts of blue and red light.
In the RGB color wheel ofadditive colors, magenta is midway between blue and red.
In theCMYK color model, used in color printing,cyan, magenta, andyellow combined make black. In practice, since the inks are not perfect, some black ink is added.
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.
Theweb colorsfuchsia 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 theRGB color model and in printing contains a higher proportion of red than the American version of fuchsia.[citation needed]
The flower of theFuchsia plant was the original inspiration for the dye, which was later renamed magenta dye.
Magenta took its name in 1860 from thisaniline dye that was originally called "fuchsine", after the fuchsia flower.
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 alternativeRYB color model instead.
Color printers today use magenta, cyan, and yellow ink to produce the full range of colors.
The color magenta was the result of the industrial chemistry revolution of the mid-nineteenth century, which began with the invention byWilliam Perkin ofmauveine in 1856, which was the first syntheticaniline 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.[4]
In France, François-Emmanuel Verguin, the director of the chemical factory of Louis Rafard nearLyon, tried many different formulae before finally in late 1858 or early 1859, mixing aniline withcarbon tetrachloride, producing a reddish-purple dye which he called "fuchsine", after the color of the flower of the fuchsia plant.[7] 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 theBattle of Magenta fought by the armies of France andSardinia against Austrians atMagenta, Lombardy the year before, and the new color became a commercial success.[4][8]
Starting in 1935, the family ofquinacridone 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 isLithol Rubine BK. One of its uses is as a food coloring.
Process magenta (pigment magenta; printer's magenta) (1890s)
Incolor printing, the color calledprocess magenta,pigment magenta, orprinter's magenta is one of the three primary pigment colors which, along withyellow andcyan, constitute the threesubtractive primary colors of pigment. (The secondary colors of pigment are blue, green, and red.) As such, the hue magenta is thecomplement ofgreen: magentapigments absorb green light; thus magenta and green are opposite colors.
TheCMYK printing process was invented in the 1890s, when newspapers began to publish colorcomic strips.
Process magenta is not anRGB 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.
This color is calledmagenta inX11 andfuchsia inHTML. In the RGB color model, it is created by combining equal intensities of red and blue light. The two web colors magenta andfuchsia are exactly the same color. Sometimes the web color magenta is calledelectric magenta orelectronic 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 andcrayons called "magenta" are usually colored the color ofprocess magenta (printer's magenta).
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 theFauvist movement used magenta and other non-traditional colors to surprise viewers, and to move their emotions through the use of bold colors.
Magenta, along with mauve, made with the newly discoveredaniline dyes, became a popular fashion color in the second half of the nineteenth century. It appeared in art in this 1890 work,Psyche, byBouguereau.
Henri Matisse,Les toits de Collioure (1905). Henri Matisse and the other painters of theFauvist movement were the first to make a major use of magenta to surprise and make an impact on the emotions of the viewer.
Astronomers have reported thatspectral class T brown dwarfs (the ones with the coolest temperatures except for the recently discovered Y brown dwarfs) are colored magenta because of absorption bysodium andpotassiumatoms of light in the green portion of the spectrum.[9][10][11]
Artist's vision of a spectral class T brown dwarf
In biology: magenta insects, birds, fish, and mammals
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.[citation needed]
In aircraftautopilot systems, the path that pilot or plane should follow to its destination is usually indicated in cockpit displays using the color magenta.[13]
TheReserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a Magenta colored banknote of₹2000 denomination on 8 November 2016 underMahatma Gandhi New Series. This is the highest currency note printed by RBI that is in active circulation inIndia.
Magenta is an extremely rare color to find on heraldic flags and coats of arms,[14] since its adoption dates back to relatively recent times. However, there are some examples of its use:
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