Pink

Pink is a pale tint of red or rose, the color of the pink flower. It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century. A combination of pink and white is associated with innocence, whereas a combination of pink and black links to eroticism and seduction. In the 21st century, pink is seen as a symbol of femininity, though it has not always been seen this way. Prior to the second half of the 20th century, pink frequently reflected masculinity. Scholars have linked the decisive feminization of pink to the emergence of Barbie in 1959.

Pink is a pale tint of red or rose, the color of the pink flower. It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century. A combination of pink and white is associated with innocence, whereas a combination of pink and black links to eroticism and seduction. In the 21st century, pink is seen as a symbol of femininity, though it has not always been seen this way. Prior to the second half of the 20th century, pink frequently reflected masculinity. Scholars have linked the decisive feminization of pink to the emergence of Barbie in 1959.

Art and fashion throughout the years

Pink was not a common color in the fashion of the Middle Ages; nobles usually preferred brighter reds, such as crimson. However, it did appear in women's fashion and religious art. In the 13th and 14th centuries, in works by Cimabue and Duccio, the Christ child was sometimes portrayed dressed in pink, the color associated with the body of Christ. In the high Renaissance painting the Madonna of the Pinks by Raphael, the Christ child is presenting a pink flower to the Virgin Mary. The pink was a symbol of marriage, showing a spiritual marriage between the mother and child. During the Renaissance, pink was mainly used for the flesh color of white faces and hands. The pigment commonly used for this was called light cinabrese; it was a mixture of the red earth pigment called sinopia, or Venetian red, and a white pigment called Bianco San Genovese, or lime white. In his famous 15th century manual on painting, Il Libro Dell'Arte, Cennino Cennini described it this way: "This pigment is made from the loveliest and lightest sinopia that is found and is mixed and mulled with St. John's white, as it is called in Florence; and this white is made from thoroughly white and thoroughly purified lime. And when these two pigments have been thoroughly mulled together (that is, two parts cinabrese and the third white), make little loaves of them like half walnuts and leave them to dry. When you need some, take however much of it seems appropriate. And this pigment does you great credit if you use it for painting faces, hands, and nudes on walls..."

18th century

Pink was particularly championed by Madame de Pompadour (1721–1764), the mistress of King Louis XV of France, who wore combinations of pale blue and pink, and had a particular tint of pink made for her by the Sevres porcelain factory, created by adding nuances of blue, black and yellow. While pink was quite evidently the color of seduction in the portraits made by George Romney of Emma, Lady Hamilton, the future mistress of Admiral Horatio Nelson, in the late 18th century, it had the completely opposite meaning in the portrait of Sarah Barrett Moulton painted by Thomas Lawrence in 1794. In this painting, it symbolized childhood, innocence and tenderness. Sarah Moulton was just eleven years of age when the picture was painted, and died the following year.

19th century

In 19th century England, pink ribbons or decorations were often worn by young boys; boys were simply considered small men, and while men in England wore red uniforms, boys wore pink. The clothing for children in the 19th century was almost always white, since, before the invention of chemical dyes, clothing of any color would quickly fade when washed in boiling water. Queen Victoria was painted in 1850 with her seventh child and third son, Prince Arthur, who wore white and pink. Pink was also worn by young men, as seen in an 1863 painting by Charles Jalabert. In late nineteenth-century France, Impressionist painters working in a pastel color palette sometimes depicted women wearing the color pink, such as Edgar Degas' image of ballet dancers or Mary Cassatt's images of women and children.

Plants and flowers

Pink is one of the most common colors of flowers; it serves to attract the insects and birds necessary for pollination and perhaps also to deter predators. The color comes from natural pigments called anthocyanins, which also provide the pink in raspberries.

Sunrises and sunsets

As a ray of white sunlight travels through the atmosphere, some of the colors are scattered out of the beam by air molecules and airborne particles. This is called Rayleigh scattering. Colors with a shorter wavelength, such as blue and green, scatter more strongly, and are removed from the light that finally reaches the eye. At sunrise and sunset, when the path of the sunlight through the atmosphere to the eye is longest, the blue and green components are removed almost completely, leaving the longer wavelength orange, red and pink light. The remaining pinkish sunlight can also be scattered by cloud droplets and other relatively large particles, which give the sky above the horizon a pink or reddish glow.

Geology

Biology

Common associations and popularity

There was a notable difference between men and women in regards to a preference for pink; three percent of women chose pink as their favorite color, compared with less than one percent of men. Many of the men surveyed were unable to even identify pink correctly, confusing it with mauve. Pink was also more popular with older people than younger. In Japan, pink is the color most commonly associated with springtime due to the blooming cherry blossoms. This is different from surveys in the United States and Europe where green is the color most associated with springtime.

Pink in other languages

In many languages, the word for the color pink is based on the name of the rose flower; like rose in French; roze in Dutch; rosa in German, Latin, Portuguese, Catalan, Spanish, Italian, Swedish and Norwegian (Nynorsk and Bokmål); ( ) in Russian; in Polish; (varód) in Hebrew; গোলাপি (golapi) in Bangla; and गुलाबी (gulābee) in Hindi. In English "rose", too, often refers to both the flower and the color. In Chinese, the color pink is named with a compound noun 粉紅色, meaning "powder red" where the powder refers to substances used for women's make-up. In Danish, Faroese and Finnish, the color pink is described as a lighter shade of red: lyserød in Danish, ljósareyður in Faroese and vaaleanpunainen in Finnish, all meaning "light red". Similarly, some Celtic languages use a term meaning "whitish red": gwynnrudh in Cornish, bándearg in Irish, bane-yiarg in Manx, bàn-dhearg in Scottish Gaelic (which also uses liath-dhearg "greyish/pale red" and pinc from English). In Icelandic, the color is called bleikur, originally meaning "pale". In the Japanese language, the traditional word for pink, , takes its name from the peach blossom. There is a separate word for the color of the cherry blossom: sakura-iro. In recent times a word based on the English version, , has begun to be used. The Thai word for the color, ชมพู (chom-puu), derives ultimately from Sanskrit जम्बू (jambū) "rose apple".

Idioms and expressions

In the pink. To be in top form, in good health, in good condition. In Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio says; "I am the very pink of courtesy." Romeo: Pink for flower? Mercutio: Right. Romeo: Then my pump is well flowered." To see pink elephants means to experience hallucination often from the consumption of alcohol. The expression was used by American novelist Jack London in his book John Barleycorn in 1913. Pink slip. To be given a pink slip means to be fired or dismissed from a job. It was first recorded in 1915 in the United States. The phrase "pink-collar worker" refers to persons working in jobs conventionally regarded as "women's work". Pink money, the pink pound or pink dollar is an economic term which refers to the spending power of the LGBT community. Advertising agencies sometimes call the gay market the pink economy. Tickled pink means extremely pleased. The Pink Tax refers to the invisible price women must pay for goods that are created and advertised specifically for them. It is the tendency for products targeted specifically toward women to be more expensive than those targeted toward men.

Architecture

Early pink buildings were usually built of brick or sandstone, which takes its pale red color from hematite, or iron ore. In the 18th century - the golden age of pink and other pastel colors - pink mansions and churches were built all across Europe. More modern pink buildings usually use the color pink to appear exotic or to attract attention.

Social movements

Pink is often used as a symbolic color by groups involved in issues important to women, as well as to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. A Dutch newsgroup about homosexuality is called nl.roze (roze being the Dutch word for pink), while in Britain, Pink News is a gay newspaper and online news service. There is a magazine called Pink for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community which has different editions for various metropolitan areas. In France Pink TV is an LGBT cable channel. In Ireland, Support group for Irish Pink Adoptions defines a pink family as a relatively neutral umbrella term for the single gay men, single lesbians, or same-gender couples who intend to adopt, are in the process of adopting, or have adopted. It also covers adults born/raised in such families. The group welcome the input of other people touched by adoption, especially people who were adopted as children and are now adults. Pinkstinks, a campaign founded in London in May 2008¹ to raise awareness of what they claim is the damage caused by gender stereotyping of children. The Pink Pistols is a gay gun rights organization. The pink ribbon is the international symbol of breast cancer awareness. Pink was chosen partially because it is so strongly associated with femininity.

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1373396840 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.