“Purple a-flutter with White and Green….what do the tricolour standards mean? 74Ī song, written for marchers on the pre-meeting processions, reinforced the importance of the suffrage colours: One participant described the impact of the colourful suffrage banners in the park: Otago Witness, 19 August 1908, p. The occasion was the Women’s Suffrage and Political Union’s first ‘monster meeting’ at Hyde Park, in London. Suffragettes revealed their colour scheme to the general public 100 years ago, on 21 June 1908. White stood for purity and green was the colour of ‘hope and the emblem of spring’. Green and white completed the trio.Īccording to one suffrage publication, purple stood for ‘the royal blood that flows in the veins of every suffragette, the instinct of freedom and dignity’. This was because of its rich symbolism – not because it was in fashion. Here’s a selection of garments in various shades of purple in our collections.įifty-two years later, in 1908, British suffragettes campaigning for the vote chose purple as one of three colours to represent their cause. This was the first ‘analine dyestuff’ and it was given the more modish name of ‘mauve’. Purple textiles became far more accessible after 1856, after a synthetic purple dye was invented – accidentally – by an 18-year-old English chemistry student (who was trying to make quinine). Fisher Hollar Collection, University of Toronto Libraries (P2206) Accidental man-made mauve Wenceslaus Hollar, Murex brabdaris, 1600s. It took the colour-bearing glandular mucus of 12,000 snails to produces just 1.4 gram of the pure dye – just enough to dye the trim of one garment. Millenia ago, the natural purple dye, which was called ‘Tyrian purple’, was extracted from a predatory sea snail murex brandaris (illustrated below) and was very expensive to make. Denarius, 2 BC-circa 13 AD, maker unknown. Roman Julius Caesar for example limited the wearing of the purple or purple-striped toga trabea to emperors (which applied to his heir Augustus, whose face appears on the 2000-year-old coin below). It was associated with and often restricted to elites. Much further back in time, purple clothing indicated the status, power and wealth of the wearer in ancient Western cultures. Less cool and closer to home: purple was my favourite colour while growing up in the 1970s, and I pestered my mother so much that she knitted me a twinset in the brightest shade of amethyst. Purchased with Ellen Eames Collection funds, 1986. Julian Dashper, Purple rain at Glorit, 1986. And it has coloured the music of visionaries like Jimi Hendrix and Prince. Listening to Prince’s Purple Rain inspired artist Julian Dashper’s work Purple Rain at Glorit (below). The Colour Purple is even the title of the 1982 award-winning novel by American writer Alice Walker. Such ‘purple’ qualities are important for creativity. Pantone describes this shade as ‘a dramatically provocative and thoughtful purple’ that ‘communicates originality, ingenuity, and visionary thinking that points us toward the future.’ Brian Brake, China Series: Electric storm at Xin Feng, 1957-1959. It more or less matches the colour of the electrical storm photographed by Brian Brake (below).
‘Ultra Violet 18-3838’ is 2018’s ‘colour of the year’, as selected by Pantone Color Institute. History curator Kirstie Ross looks at the symbolism of purple from ancient Rome to the fight for women’s rights.
0 kommentar(er)
