Color Chronicles: Lovely Lavender

What is there to make of the color Lavender? The color was named after the flower, and the name was only applied to the flower itself. Lifewire wrote that the color's name is rooted from the Latin word "lavare", which means "to wash".

According to A Dictionary of Color (1930), the first time it was used as a term for color in the English language was in 1705. The same book listed lavender and its three major shades, which are floral lavender, lavender gray, and lavender blue, then eventually adding the fourth shade, old lavender. The shades came from the colors present in the flower itself.

It's easy to recognize the color lavender in other objects. it's a purple that leans towards pink tones than blue It's not entirely pale, but more of muted. Purple and its family members in the gradient have a special place in chromatic symbolism. Lavender, among with violet-hued flowers, symbolize delicacy and preciousness.

This light purple was a favorite in 19th and early 20th-century fashion for mourning garments in Great Britain, and was one of the few acceptable colors for women's mourning fashion. Now, while purple remains the representative color of the LGBT community, tones of lavender were the first to symbolize homosexuality especially in the 1950's and 1960's. The term streak of lavender in the 1935 dictionary of slang meant 'effeminate man' according to Carl Sanburg while he was describing Abraham Lincoln. In the 1960's, there was also the term lavender boys which refers to homosexual males.

To capture this color,, we recommend taking a chance with the Lomochrome Purple film, a special emulsion which will turn your compositions into various colors of purple. You might achieve the pinkish, muted purple by photographing subtle yet warm-colored objects or surfaces.

2017-06-25 #culture #color-chronicles-lavender