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Why it took us thousands of years to see the colour violet

psyche.co

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Re: Why it took us thousands of years to see the colour violet

#51

Post by _5659 »

edit: I deleted most of my comment. I don't think it added anything substantial to the conversation.

I will point out that this seems like plagiarism.

"...the retina is actually an extension of the brain, formed embryonically from neural tissue and connected to the brain by the optic nerve."

From: https://www.britannica.com/science/retina

"...The retina is actually an extension of the brain, formed embryonically from neural tissue and connected to the brain proper by the optic nerve."

Re: Why it took us thousands of years to see the colour violet

#52

Post by varjag »

bsder wrote: post #14
varjag wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This fact is completely addressed in the article, pointing out that aquamarine and other colors were expensive as well yet it never stopped the artists.

Tyrian purple was way more expensive than ultramarine. It required vast numbers of snails for very small amounts of dye. When royalty couldn't afford it, the production method was lost very quickly. In addition, I'm pretty sure it didn't have a stable solid form. It also wasn't a particularly stable color (Tyrian purple robes would change color over time). Both of those, by themselves, would be enough to preclude its…

Eh, it's not like kings would use it to paint themselves. Can't see what would prevent it using for commissioned work, a bulk of the art in the old days.

Gold plating your artwork isn't cheap either but was used liberally none the less.

Re: Why it took us thousands of years to see the colour violet

#53

Post by MrYellowP »

ithkuil wrote: post #30
bsder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It is not that unusual to find cultures and languages that do not distinguish between "green" and "blue", for example.

And brown and orange

Fun Fact: Brown is orange with context!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh4aWZRtTwU

Re: Why it took us thousands of years to see the colour violet

#54

Post by jbay808 »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #16

Not read the article yet but commenting while I remember... Prime Minister Gladstone who translated Homer in his spare time, thought that the ancient Greeks, or at least Homer where colour blind. Gladstone said "We have a great deal of difficulty in translating Homer’s colour terms into modern western languages" Homer, apparently had the colour literacy of a modern child, he described oxen as the colour of the sky an…

> he described oxen as the colour of the sky

So, probably a mottled light grey?

Re: Why it took us thousands of years to see the colour violet

#55

Post by CRConrad »

bildung wrote: post #48
Gravityloss wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just about caring or differentiating about relatively small difference. Not about not being able to see the whole color. Which is in the title. Recently a lot of people forwarded the idea that ancient people couldn't see blue. If you look at Egyptian artefacts, they sure have a lot of symmetrical blue accents. If they really couldn't see the color, then by accident they should have at least at times picked som…

> That's just about caring or differentiating about relatively small difference. Which this is all about! The author talks about 51 Munsell color samples out of 1500, so only 3% of the gamut. Look how specific "violet" is in the Munsell system: https://munsell.com/color-blog/munsell-book-of-color-1929-tr... (violet is at #17).

Yes yes, but still: the title is pure idiocy.

Re: Why it took us thousands of years to see the colour violet

#56

Post by CRConrad »

eCa wrote: post #33
ithkuil wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the color orange. There wasn't a name for the color in antiquity. When the fruit become available, its color was referred to as "the color of a norange" (this happened independently in various European languages. Unrelated factoid, many languages with an indefinite article that ends with n, assimilated the leading n of the fruit name in the article). Clearly our ancestors could see the orange colored before…

Interestingly, in a bunch of other European languages the fruit is referred to as ”apple from China”. But the colour is still named ”orange”.

It's fallen ever more out of use, but when I was young the colour orange was still often called "brandgult" -- "fire-yellow" -- in Swedish. (And the fruit still is an "apelsin".)

Re: Why it took us thousands of years to see the colour violet

#57

Post by perl4ever »

CRConrad wrote: post #56
eCa wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, in a bunch of other European languages the fruit is referred to as ”apple from China”. But the colour is still named ”orange”.

It's fallen ever more out of use, but when I was young the colour orange was still often called "brandgult" -- "fire-yellow" -- in Swedish. (And the fruit still is an "apelsin".)

>"fire-yellow"

That reminds me how my first car was blue-green, or turquoise, to me, but other people would often call it "green". The official color name according to the manufacturer was "Tahitian Green", I think.

Under sodium lights, it would look blue to me, but under other lighting, I considered it to be a blue-green. But it never made any sense to me to consider it primarily green.

Re: Why it took us thousands of years to see the colour violet

#58

Post by jjk166 »

ithkuil wrote: post #28
cblconfederate wrote: post #12

> Egypt, Mesopotamia and the medieval Islamic cultures survived especially well in their extremely dry climates. And they had no violet in them at all. In ancient times purple was a luxury for dying clothes, even in medieval times, and harvesting sea snails for the dye was lucrative business between egyptians, phoeniceans etc. so how come they claim we can't see it? I dont think their claim is true. What's next? "Why…

Consider the color orange. There wasn't a name for the color in antiquity. When the fruit become available, its color was referred to as "the color of a norange" (this happened independently in various European languages. Unrelated factoid, many languages with an indefinite article that ends with n, assimilated the leading n of the fruit name in the article). Clearly our ancestors could see the orange colored before…

Orange (red-yellow) is a tertiary color. Most tertiary colors are named for things.

Chartreuse (yellow-green) is named for a liquor and was first used in 1764, much more recently than orange.

Azure (blue-cyan) is named for lapis-lazuli.

Rose (magenta-red) is named for the flower.

Turquoise (green-cyan) is named for the gem, with its etymology only in the 17th century.

Violet (magenta-blue) is actually unique in that it's the only tertiary color that isn't named for something. Its name comes from the proto-Indo-European word for purple. (In this case, purple is the color named for a thing).

The process continues for further subdivided color. Most quarternary colors don't have distinct well-accepted names, but some like scarlet, fuschia, and aquamarine are reasonably accepted.

If you've gotten through life calling things yellow-green instead of using the word chartreuse, you know how people got through life without using the word orange.

Re: Why it took us thousands of years to see the colour violet

#59

Post by bsder »

varjag wrote: post #52
bsder wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tyrian purple was way more expensive than ultramarine. It required vast numbers of snails for very small amounts of dye. When royalty couldn't afford it, the production method was lost very quickly. In addition, I'm pretty sure it didn't have a stable solid form. It also wasn't a particularly stable color (Tyrian purple robes would change color over time). Both of those, by themselves, would be enough to preclude its…

Eh, it's not like kings would use it to paint themselves. Can't see what would prevent it using for commissioned work, a bulk of the art in the old days. Gold plating your artwork isn't cheap either but was used liberally none the less.

Gold is cheaper than ultramarine, and gold has a very stable solid form as does ultramarine (lapis lazuli).

There also wasn't a lot of point in using the particular Tyrian purple in art as indigo blue and cochineal red were much more prevalent and worked fine as purple in art.

The fact that Tyrian purple was lost is why Roman Catholic Cardinals wear red now instead of purple.

Re: Why it took us thousands of years to see the colour violet

#60

Post by kolinko »

eCa wrote: post #33
ithkuil wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the color orange. There wasn't a name for the color in antiquity. When the fruit become available, its color was referred to as "the color of a norange" (this happened independently in various European languages. Unrelated factoid, many languages with an indefinite article that ends with n, assimilated the leading n of the fruit name in the article). Clearly our ancestors could see the orange colored before…

Interestingly, in a bunch of other European languages the fruit is referred to as ”apple from China”. But the colour is still named ”orange”.

In Poland the fruit is “pomarańcza”, and the colour is “pomarańczowy” :)
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