Color is one of the design’s most important elements. And so it should come as no surprise that there are several colors named after the basic elements found in nature, such as “grassy green” or “sky blue.” But then there’s a whole variety of colors named after people who made them famous, the musicians who custom-mixed them on their palettes, the scientists who created them, the celebrities and the debutants who popularised them.
Read about 6 colors named after people.
1. ALICE BLUE
A pale azure blue named for the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, who was known for wearing colored gowns and thus started a trend. She was also notorious for public smoking and other ways of mischief-making, which prompted her father to announce: “I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.” Alice ice-blue dresses inspired Joseph McCarthy and Harry Tierney’s song “Alice Blue Gown” which premiered in the Broadway musical Irene in 1919.
2. ISABELLINE
Isabelline, the pale color of champagne, used to characterise the horses’ coat, but it has an off-putting tradition. In 1601, Spain’s Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia vowed not to change her undergarments until the siege of Ostend, which lasted three years, was over; another story is that Isabella I of Castile vowed not to remove her undergarments during Granada’s eight-month siege in 1491. Alas, the Oxford English Dictionary disproved both.
3. VERONESE GREEN
Veronese Green, a sea-green shade with a touch of teal, is named after the Italian Renaissance painter Paolo Caliari (1528-1588), who had migrated east to Venice and became known as Paolo Veronese. Veronese was renowned for his over-sized paintings portraying scenes from Greek mythology and the Bible, such as The Feast in Levi’s House (1573). He used his hand-mixed paint colors as a storytelling technique in those masterpieces to create dramatic architectural environments and landscapes, often with evocative green skies and trees. Veronese Green has been a widely used hue ever since.
4. VANDYKE BROWN
This rich, soft, transparent brown was made with high organic matter concentration and was popular with the Old Masters. It was named for the visionary Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck, who often used the color in his paintings, and who also lent his name to an early photographic printing process, which also created a brown color but did not necessarily require soil.
5. FUCHSIA
Fuchsia’s bright, red-purple shade derives its name from a herb, fuchsia, which in turn has been named after botanist Leonhart Fuchs. His work as a professor nad medical practitioner in 16th-century Germany led him to often work with herbs, plants, and flowers and founded him as one of the founding fathers of botany. When fellow botanist Charles Plumier first saw the fuchsia flower in the early 1700s on one of his Caribbean voyages, he named it in honour of the great botanist who came before him.
6. BAKER-MILLER PINK
Speaking of tranquility, Baker-Miller Pink is a shade of pink that could “reduce potential or real violence,” the American Institute for Biosocial Science scientist Alexander G. Schauss concluded in the 1970s. Schauss also carried out a number of studies on color and how it influenced mood and behaviour, including painting the walls of institutions such as naval academies and correction facilities, a Pepto Bismol-Esque pink hue to see if it decreased anxiety and frustration. He named the color made by mixing a gallon of white latex paint with a red semi-gloss paint pint after the commander (Baker) and a warden (Miller) at a naval correctional facility where one of his experiments had been completed.
Read LaterAdd to FavouritesAdd to Collection
15 Funny Memes That Can You Can Relate To Your Work Life