Purple is a color that has long captivated people throughout history. Unlike other common colors like red, yellow, or blue, purple is not found abundantly in nature. This makes the origins and manufacture of the color purple quite fascinating.
In ancient times, purple was highly treasured and even associated with royalty due to the difficulty and expense of producing durable purple dyes. The rarity of purple in nature meant that extracting and formulating purple pigments required tremendous skill, ingenuity, and labor.
Over the centuries, our ancestors developed innovative techniques for deriving stable purple dyes from natural sources. Their clever methods involved extracting purple and violet pigments from certain sea snails as well as from plant substances. Later on, the advent of synthetic chemistry enabled the creation of new purple dyes as well.
The unique, almost mystical allure of the color purple has driven people’s persistent search for ways to reliably produce it. So how exactly did humans harvest nature and later science to manufacture that prized royal hue? Read on to learn the captivating history of how people discovered and created the color purple.
Ancient Natural Purple Dyes
For thousands of years, artisans sought to produce durable purple textile dyes from natural substances. The most famous and highly coveted purple dye in antiquity came from marine mollusks known as murex or rock snails. These snails lived in the shallow coastal waters of the Mediterranean and secreted purple fluid onto their shells. People along the Mediterranean discovered that this viscous, violet-hued snail discharge could be used to dye wool extremely intense shades of purple.
The snail-produced dye became known as Tyrian or Royal purple for its use in royal garments in the city of Tyre. It was considered the most splendid purple dye in the ancient world. Extracting just a few ounces of Tyrian purple required collecting thousands of snails and laboriously separating the precious purple discharge from each one. This extremely slow and painstaking process made Tyrian purple fabrics worth more than their weight in gold.
Other natural sources of purple dye came from certain lichens, mollusks, and plants. People discovered purple and violet pigments in lichens like Roccella tinctoria and Lasallia pustulata. Varieties of orchil lichen when fermented produced reddish-purple and blueish-purple hues. In India and Southeast Asia, artisans derived a purple dye called kamala from the glandular hairs on the capsules of the kamala tree. Additionally, blueberry, blackberry, logwood, and elderberry juices were found to yield purple when overlaid on yellow dyed fabrics.
While many of these organic dyes produced lovely purples and violets, the colors were often neither very lightfast nor colorfast. Exposure to light and washing would cause the dyes to fade or run. As a result, the quest continued for improved ways to manufacture stable purple pigments and dyes.
Synthetic Purple Dyes
It was not until the mid-19th century that chemists devised the first synthetic purple dye. In 1856, an 18-year-old English chemistry student named William Henry Perkin accidentally discovered the synthetic dye mauveine. Perkin was attempting to synthesize quinine, an antimalarial agent, when he noticed purple compound precipitating from a reaction mixture.
The serendipitous find became the first synthetic aniline dye and sparked the development of the synthetic dye industry. Perkin commercialized his mauve dye, marketing it under the name aniline purple and Tyrian purple. By 1859, Perkin’s mauve dye was being worn by Queen Victoria and the color mauve had become a fashion craze.
In the late 19th century, German chemists August Wilhelm von Hofmann and Heinrich Caro identified the molecular structure of Perkin’s mauve dye. Subsequently, Caro used Perkin’s aniline synthesis strategy to derive other aniline-based dyes in vivid shades of red, blue, and purple. Caro’s purple dye, known as methyl violet, offered superior colorfastness than Perkin’s mauve.
At the dawn of the 20th century, German chemist Paul Friedländer synthesized another improved synthetic purple dye called indigo. Indigo had better stability and dyeing capabilities than earlier synthetic dyes. It would become one of the most prevalent dyes for denim jeans and other clothing.
The first half of the 20th century saw the invention of other critical synthetic purple dyes. In 1912, Friedländer synthesized the thiazine dye methyl violet, a violet-blue crystalline powder. In 1935, English chemist H. deC. Woods created the copper phthalocyanine pigment monastral fast violet B. It featured excellent light and chemical fastness. And in 1947, German chemists Max Schmidt and Hans Musso patented the triarylmethane dye gentian violet, a bactericidal agent.
Modern Synthetic Purple Dyes
Today, a wide assortment of synthetic purple dyes are available using aromatic hydrocarbons and other organic compounds. These modern dyes provide permanence, uniformity, and colorfastness far superior to most natural dyes. Some current examples include:
– Dibromoanthanthrone – a reddish purple pigment used for plastics, paints, and inks
– Carbazole dioxazine – a violet pigment with high tinting strength and resistance properties
– Porphyrazine – a near-infrared absorbing pigment
– Quinacridone – a violet pigment known for weather resistance
– Perylene – a highly stable violet pigment resisting heat and chemicals
Contemporary fiber artists also frequently employ purple acid dyes for dyeing fabric, yarn, and wool. These anionic dyes work well on protein-based fibers like silk and wool. Common examples include erioglaucine, bromocresol purple, bromophenol blue, and brilliant blue FCF dye.
While natural lichen and plant dyes are still used for artisanal textile dyeing, nearly all mass commercial production of purple fabrics and textiles today uses standardized synthetic dyes. These modern dyes deliver the vivid, consistent, and colorfast purple shades that consumers and manufacturers expect.
Making Shades of Purple
Purple pigments and dyes today come in an enormous range of shades and saturations. Mixing blue and red produces the color purple, so variations in the proportions and hues of the source blue and red dyes alter the final purple color.
Darker royal purples contain more blue while lighter lavenders have more red. Adjusting factors like dye concentration, mordant metals, or pH modifies the final color as well. Adding black will darken a purple whereas adding white produces pale, softened purples like lilac and mauve.
In printing and digital media, purple colors are produced by combinations of the additive primary colors red, blue, and green light. Varying the intensities of the RGB components generates all shades of purple. This includes a spectrum from reddish-purples to blueish-purples like violet and indigo. Subtractive color mixing of pigments works analogously.
So whether formulated by ancient civilizations or modern labs, people have long prized the ability to precisely tune and produce purple hues using nature’s palette.
Significance and Symbolism
What accounts for people’s age-old fascination with the color purple? Throughout history, purple dyes were synonymous with prestige and royalty. The rich purple garments of emperors, kings, and nobles represented wealth and status. Purple also symbolized spirituality and holiness in antiquity, including its use for priestly vestments.
In the Catholic Church, cardinals and bishops traditionally wore ecclesiastical robes of Tyrian purple. Bishops in the Byzantine Empire dressed in imperial purple as well. The purple vestments honored these clergymen’s authority and proximity to divinity.
Artists over the centuries have also recognized purple’s noble and sacred connotations. For example, Renaissance painters often depicted the Virgin Mary in purple robes. The color purple continues to maintain regal, luxurious associations today. Purple is also connected with magic, mystery, creativity, and imagination.
Purple’s rarity and allure has driven people’s ingenuity in producing it for millennia. Our ancestors’ experimentation with plant, mineral, and animal sources yielded the first fragile purple dyes. Modern chemistry later fulfilled the quest for vibrant, fade-resistant purple pigments. The liquid gold discharged by diminutive mollusks evolved into a color accessible to all.
Conclusion
The human fascination with the color purple motivated people across countless generations to resolve nature’s challenges in creating it. Ancient civilizations extracted precious violet and purple dyes from plant and animal sources through backbreaking labor. Later, the burgeoning science of synthetic chemistry cracked the code on concocting stable purple pigments.
Now an extensive palette of standardized, colorfast purple dyes are readily synthesized on an industrial scale. The prized purples of royalty are today ubiquitous worldwide on apparel and consumer goods. Yet purple dyes still retain their aura of luxury, creativity, and magic. The color purple’s rich cultural legacy and timeless appeal endure as a testament to humankind’s ingenuity and persistence in manufacturing that precious, prestigious hue.
