Colour Me Fuchsia: ● Fuchsia

What is Colour?

Color is the aspect of things that is caused by differing qualities of light being reflected or emitted by them.

To see color, you have to have light. When light shines on an object some colors bounce off the object and others are absorbed by it. Our eyes only see the colors that are bounced off or reflected.

The sun’s rays contain all the colors of the rainbow mixed together. This mixture is known as white light. When white light strikes a white object, it appears white to us because it absorbs no color and reflects all color equally. The colour black absorbs all colors equally and reflects none, so it looks black to us. While artists consider black a color, scientists do not because black is the absence of all color.

All light rays contain color. Light is made of electromagnetic waves. These waves spread out from any light source, such as the sun. Light waves travel at tremendous speed (186,000 miles or 300,000 kilometers per second). Different colors have different wavelengths, which is the distance between corresponding parts of two of the waves. The longest wavelength of light that humans can see is red. The shortest is violet. Ultraviolet has an even shorter wavelength, but humans cannot see it. Some birds and bees can see ultraviolet light. Infrared has a longer wavelength than red light, and humans can not see this light but can feel the heat infrared generates. (source)

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What I think when I see fuchsia:

Previously, I had posted about the story behind this blog. For the naming itself, I was inspired by the information given on Crayola Crayon Chronology. The first time I recognized the colour fuchsia is because of its standout shade. Moreover, I was connected by the characters mentioned there. It said that fuchsia has the characters of majestic, magical, visionary, royal, and intuitive. The word intuitive connects me deeply on how I started wearing hijab, and established this blog. Although on the first place I knew that to wear hijab is a fard command, I didn't truly feel the benefits until I did. Now I can only wish that I had worn the hijab earlier.

Fuchsia is categorized in the purple-hued family. Fuchsia is not pink or purple, because it is too dark to be considered as pink, yet it is too bright to be considered as purple. The character of fuchsia is not so bright to overpower, but it is not the shadow either. It's kinda pink, kinda purple. Fuchsia is the bright, standout shade of purple, or a vivid purplish shade of red.

The colour fuchsia is named after the flower of the fuchsia plant, which took its name from the 16th century German botanist Leonhart Fuchs. Fuchsia flowers themselves contain a variety of colors, from fuchsia to purple to red and pink. The color fuchsia was first introduced as the color of a new aniline dye called fuchsine, patented in 1859 by the French chemist Francois-Emmanuel Verguin. The first recorded use of fuchsia as a color name in English was in 1892. (source)

What we might confuse fuchsia with:

Magenta is a purplish-red or purplish-crimson color. 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 the RGB color model, used to create colors on computers and television screens, and in web colors, fuchsia and magenta are exactly the same color, made by mixing blue and red light at full and equal intensity. In color printing and design, there are more variations between magenta and fuchsia. Fuchsia is usually more purplish color, whereas magenta is more reddish. 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. (source)

Pink is a pale red color. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink, especially when combined with white or pale blue, is the color most commonly associated with femininity, sensitivity, tenderness, childhood, and the romantic. However, when combined with violet or black, it is associated with eroticism and seduction. The use of the word for the color "pink" was first recorded in the late 17th century. (source)

In my opinion, the word 'hot pink' is sort of opposing the definition of 'pink' itself. But, I think that hot pink is real. It is a red-hued colour, but much more lighter, and is closer to the purple hue. It is also can be called a reddish version of pink. The colour is bright and flaming, just like its temperature: it's hot.

I found this outfit post accidentally on pinterest. As what I think, when slightly-different colours are combined, we can actually see the difference of each colour. Even though they came from the same shades, they're actually different, right?

Pantone's Version

Shades of Fuchsia

Shades of Magenta

Shades of Hot Pink

After all, the clarification of colours will be vary because the human eye can identify about 10 million colours and our perceptions itself also can be vary depending on how much the light reflected from the objects that our eyes see. Although my version and pantone's version of these three classification of colours is clearly different, I'm sticking to my version anyway.

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Some of my friends and family remembered me (read: my blog) through the bougainvillea flowers they saw. Honestly, the purple bougainvillea also reminds me about the colour fuchsia too.