Some colors feature an unconventional designation with downright weird names. Usually are inspired by natural elements, such as plants, animals or metals, and frequently arise from an attempt to indicate a certain type of color by mentioning the natural element that possesses it (a flower, an animal, etc).
We could consider that it is a didactic way of making knowledge of a specific type of color with the exact tonality and nuances that characterize it reach a non-expert audience in colorimetry. Therefore, below we mention the most curious names of rare colors.
Curious names of rare colors: a very peculiar colorimetric designation
Colorimetry is the science that studies colors and develops methods to quantify their measurement and perception. It takes into account that colors present differences depending on their luminosity, hue and saturation.
The result is the existence of an infinite spectrum of colors, whose identification sometimes becomes so complex that curious names of rare colors are born in popular jargon. Others owe their particular designation to historical reasons, physical properties of the materials and a long etc. Some are included in official nomenclatures for pigment manufacturers. Therefore, we tell you below everything you need to know about the most curious names of rare colors:
Drake's neck
This name honors the color of the head and neck of a particular species of duck: the mallard, mallard or collared duck (anas platyrhynchos). It is a species of duck with a pronounced dimorphism, where the female has brown-brown plumage tones and the male, on the other hand, has very vibrant and striking colors, especially on the head and neck, whose color bears his name, "drake ” or “Drake's neck”: it is a bluish green with metallic sheen. A color that, due to its various shades and shades, is difficult to define, and this way has been found to facilitate its identification, because once you know what animal it is, you quickly know the color referred to.
Plumbago
The name of this color is inspired by the blue jasmine or plumbago auriculata. It is also known as Malacara, Matchmaker, Isabel Segunda, Blue Plumbago, Cape Plumbago y jasmine from heaven
It is, as its name says, a beautiful plant whose flowers are of a very specific shade of purplish blue. It is a pastel color, cold, as well as bright. It evokes cleanliness and is undoubtedly of great beauty. Its flowers are grouped in an inflorescence and can decline towards violet or lilac tones. They can also be variegated, alternating with other softer or brighter colors within the shades of their characteristic blue. Due to their beauty, these plants are used in gardens and homes as ornamentation to decorate with a touch of their precious and characteristic blue.
Periwinkle
“Pervenche” is the French word that derives from the translation of the English word "Periwinkle", used to designate the plant flower color vinca minor or brussels, characterized by being one tone lavender or sky blue.
to this color It is also designated as "periwinkle", especially to designate the color of the flowers of this plant since they have a purplish appearance that is difficult to define. It could be said that it is a color with a flat and striking tone, which is not soft but not bright either. Therefore, what better than using a single word to designate such a complex combination of shades: pervenche blue.
Chiclamino
It is a type of blue that apparently "only Mexicans know about." That is to say, it is a blue that is difficult to define and whose term is originally from Mexico. There seems to be a consensus that it is a type of metallic blue that became popular in the 80s through certain car brands.
Also alludes to the lead of some original Mexican chewing gum characteristic blue color, hence “chicla”-mino.
It is important not to confuse it with cyclamen, which is an official color name and which the RAE recognizes as "violet pink, similar to that of the cyclamen flower." That is, the cyclamen comes from the purple color of the cyclamen flowers.
Antimony
Antimony is a chemical element belonging to the group of metals in the periodic table. It has four allotropic forms, of which the most stable is colored. bluish white, to whom this type of color owes its name, the color antimony.
The unstable forms of antimony are yellow or black in color, are non-metallic forms, and are not what antimony refers to as a color.
Its chemical abbreviation is Sb which comes from the Latin stibium which means "Bright Gray Sand Bank" since it is extracted from the stibnite ore.
Falu
Falu red is a color qualified as a type of dark red. Also called Falun red or Falun red (from Swedish: falu röd), It's about a color close to iron oxide or dark brick color which was extracted from the Falun mine, located in the Swedish province of Dalecarlia, back in the XNUMXth century. From these deposits an ocher-yellow pigment was obtained which, when subjected to firing, turned towards a characteristic dark red or falu red.
A paint for exterior surfaces traditionally used in Sweden was made with it. and that gives the characteristic coloration to the houses that populate its landscapes. It is a color whose composition exerts a protective effect on wood, which is why it has been a preferred pigment to cover exterior surfaces exposed to the country's extreme weather conditions.
Nattier
Nattier blue owes its name to the French painter Jean-Marc Nattier (1685-1766) who popularized this type of blue through his works, where he portrayed the bourgeoisie of the time. It's about a kind of metallic blue that he himself created and disseminated through his works. To date, this blue did not exist and its launch achieved such success among the upper classes that the artist worked for a time for the court of Louis XV making portraits.
The star component of this color is aniline (aniline blue), a powerful dye that gives that characteristic vibrant blue to this beautiful blue color.
Vantablack
the vantablack It is the darkest black that exists. It is the blackest black (forgive the redundancy) that has been produced to date. It occupies the third position within the three darkest blacks that exist, and is only surpassed by the improved versions of it, which are vantablack 2.0 and vantablack 3.0.
Etymologically it derives from the words "vanta" and "black" (black in English). VANTA comes from the acronym in English Vertically Aligned Nano Tube Arrays that allude to its composition: Set of Vertically Aligned Nano Tubes.
And it is that the creation of this color has been possible thanks to a sophisticated laboratory preparation based on carbon nanotubes that are arranged vertically in space, forming a kind of "forest", so that the light that falls on them is trapped as if it were a black hole. Such is so, that can absorb up to 99,965% of visible light radiation. The result is the apparent loss of three-dimensionality, so that vantablack colored surfaces create the optical illusion of presenting a deep black hole and this is especially visible when placed on surfaces as reflective as aluminum foil.
Due to its characteristics it has very interesting applications, especially of a scientific nature. It is used, for example, in NASA telescopes to avoid the stray light that affects the image captures. And of course it also has its huge public in the world of art. So much so that the British sculptor of Indian origin Anish Kapoor he bought the rights to the pigment for an unknown sum of money, which has created controversy among artists due to its inaccessibility, since only the sculptor has exclusive access to its use.