The Color Orange

by The Revelation Painting on Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 3:08pm

 

 

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The colour orange occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum at a wavelength of about 585–620 nm, and has a hue of 30° in HSV colour space. It is numerically halfway between red and yellow in a gamma-compressed RGB colour space, the expression of which is the RGB colour wheel. The complementary colour of orange is blue. Orange pigments are largely in the ochre o rcadmium families, and absorb mostly blue light.

 

The colour orange is named after the orange fruit, after the appearance of the ripe fruit.  Before this word was introduced to the English-speaking world, the colour was referred to as ġeolurēad (yellow-red).  The first recorded use of orange as a colour name in English was in 1512, in a will now filed with the Public Records Office.

 

Burnt orange has been in use as a colour name for this deep shade of orange since 1915.  This colour is one variation that is used as a school colour of the University of Texas at Austin,Westwood High School (Austin, Texas), Clemson University, Virginia Tech, Auburn University, and Mesa Verde High School (Citrus Heights, California).

 

This variation of orange is one of the primary colours for the American Football team the Cleveland Browns. Burnt orange was popular in interior design during the 1970s, and is often associated with this period. Red headed people usually have hair that is more accurately a burnt orange colour.

 

Brown is actually derived from the orange part (orange + grey) of the colour spectrum. It can be described as an especially dark orange.

 

Geography and history

• Historically and culturally, saffron, red and white have always been the most prominent colours of Hinduism and have been regularly worn, particularly in religious ceremonies, in India for more than 2000 years.

• Orange is the national colour of the Netherlands. The royal family, the House of Orange-Nassau, derives its name in part from its former holding, the principality of Orange. (The title Prince of Orange is still used for the Dutch heir apparent.)
• The Republic of the Orange Free State (Dutch: Oranje-Vrijstaat) was an independent Boer republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. It is the historical precursor to the present-day Free State province. Extending between the Orange and Vaal rivers, its borders were determined by the United Kingdom in 1848 when the region was proclaimed as the Orange River Sovereignty, with a seat of a British Resident in Bloemfontein.

• Oranjemund (German for: “Mouth of Orange”) is a town situated in the extreme southwest of Namibia, on the northern bank of the Orange River mouth.

Politically

• The saffron stripe in the flag of India signifies courage, sacrifice and the spirit of renunciation.
• Orange is the national colour of the Netherlands (See above at: Geography and history). Orange was seen on its original flag until the middle of the 17th century.
• Orange, white, and green are the national colours of India, the Republic of Ireland, Niger and Côte d’Ivoire.
• The Orange Institution is a pro-British Protestant association based in Northern Ireland.
• In the United States Army, orange is the colour of the United States Army Signal Corps.
• The US Department of Homeland Security’s code orange on its terror threat scale represents a high risk, second highest to severe.
• Prisoners incarcerated in many American jails and prisons are made to wear orange jumpsuits so they will be easy to see if they try to escape.
• Deluxe International orange is the colour of the paint on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.
• The US Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices specifies orange for use in temporary and construction signage.
• Orange was the rallying colour of the 2004 – 2005 Orange Revolution in Ukraine.
• Orange is sometimes associated with various Christian democratic and populist parties.
• Orange was the colour used by the historical Liberal Party of the United Kingdom
• Orange was used as a rallying colour by Israelis (such as Jewish settlers) who opposed Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 2005.

Religious and metaphysical

 

Buddhist monks in the Theravada tradition typically wear saffron robes, although occasionally maroon, the colour normally worn by Vajrayana Buddhist monks is worn.

• Orange, or more specifically deep saffron, is the most sacred colour of Hinduism.
• Orange is used to symbolically represent the second (Swadhisthana) chakra.
• Hindu and Sikh flags atop mandirs and gurdwaras, respectively, are typically a saffron coloured pennant.
• Saffron robes are often worn by Hindu swamis and Buddhist monks in the Theravada tradition.
• Orange represents the sin of gluttony.

— Common connotations — warning, autumn, desire, fire, Halloween,Thanksgiving, prisoners, Orangism (Netherlands), Unionism in Ireland, Indian religions, engineering, determination,compassion, endurance, optimism.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_(colour)