Paint - whats the difference between purple and violet, if any?

Question

I would have thought it was that purple is a general description of all shades of purple, and violet is a specific shade. But is there any other difference? Something to do with the colour wheel/spectrum? Where the pigment comes from? A friend asked me.

Answer 1

Violet is used to describe the electronmagnetic phenomenon (direct light) while purple applies to pigmentation (reflected light). Not much of a difference when it hits the retina, but, from my art experieince, most violets tend toward red while most purples tend toward blue. This is especially apparent when a bit of white is mixed into both colors. By the way: Shade is the term we use to indicate the addition of black to a color; tint is the term to indicate the addition of white. If you want to indicate a blend of blue and red, the term would be a mixture, not a shade. And yes, I am sure chemists could tell you the formula differences.

Answer 2

Hi:

I looked through the previous answers, and some had really good content about the specific colors of purple and violet and what their meanings may be. For actual names of art material colors, these terms are very broadly applied. For oil and watercolor paints, it's usually better to become familiar with common pigment ingredients such as alizarin crimson, quinacridone magenta, or dioxazine violet. At some art supply stores, you can obtain raw pigment to grind yourself to make paint or pastels, and you might want to check out Sinopia pigments - they have an interesting site for pigment and related materials. I think if you get a tube of oil or watercolor paint, the actual ingredients may be listed including the pigment colorant used.

Answer 3

Strictly speaking purple is the mix of red and blue colors, the colors of the opposite spectrum of visible light. It is always composed by light of two different wavelengths.
violet is at the end of the color spectrum. It is about the shortest wavelength we can see. It is light of a single wavelength in the range of 380-420 nm.
Consequently the rainbow has the color violet in it, but never the color purple.
Nevertheless a lot of people use the terms often interchangable for on a color wheel they are adjacent. Look up on wikipedia for more info...

Answer 4

Purple and violet are usually considered synonyms. With colors, unfortunately (unlike in music) there is no consensus for colors corresponding with simple names. When measuring color scientifically in wavelengths, there is a RANGE of wavelengths indicated, and not a specific wavelength marked out as "X color." In music, a C is a C no matter who you ask.

You could put a hundred people in front of a array of purple color (from lavender to indigo), ask them to select "violet," you wouldn't get a unanimous decision.

Purple has been described as an equal mix of red and blue (but given what I've noted above, definitions of red and blue are sometimes unclear). Violet is usually considered a variety of purple.

Answer 5

There are many shades of purple and many shades of violet. Search 'Pantone 'color formula' even look on Wikipedia. There is no one answer to your question. However this range of colours is good for a relaxing atmosphere, but then so is Che Matte Tea!

Answer 6

The difference is simple, Purple is a pigment, Violet is a shade of light.

The term purple in its widest sense refers to a wide variety of shades of colour occurring between blue and red.

Purple is also used in a more specialized and restricted sense by chromaticians (colour scientists) to indicate those colours between violet and red which are not spectral colours but mixtures of red and blue light. These colours are those colours, which are along what is called the purple boundary (a straight line between violet and red), on the CIE chromaticity diagram.

In an even more restricted sense, the term purple is used to describe the colour between violet and magenta on the colour wheel (this colour, electric purple is shown below) and its light or dark shades.

The term purple may also be used specifically to describe one of the six specific shades of purple: violet, imperial purple, royal purple, generic purple, artist's purple, electric purple, psychedelic purple, or vivid purple.

The word purple comes from the Middle English word purple, which originates from the Latin purpura. This in turn is derived from the (Koine Greek: πορφυρα, porphura) name of the dye manufactured in Classical antiquity from the mucus-secretion of the hypobranchial gland of a marine snail known as the Murex brandaris or the spiny dye-murex.

The first recorded use of the word purpel in English was in the year AD 975.

The colour terms purple and violet cause confusion for many people: they are used interchangeably by some people in casual conversation. Technically, purple when used as a general term in its most general sense is the name of the colour group of many related colours such as violet, red-violet, heliotrope, lavender, mauve, magenta, indigo and lilac. Indigo is a blue-purple; lilac is a light purple; mauve is in between the two.

Violet is a spectral colour of a (approximately 420–380nm) shorter wavelength than blue, while purple is a combination of red and blue light and when regarded as electric purple - it is the only colour on the colour wheel besides magenta and rose that is not a spectral colour - purple is an extra spectral colour, along with magenta and rose. In fact, purple was not present on Newton's colour wheel (which went directly from violet to red), though it is present on modern ones. There is no such thing as the "wavelength of purple light"; it only exists as a combination. Also, violet light varies solely by wavelength, while purple varies by the proportion of red to blue light.

Answer 7

I'd go with violet being a shade of purple. more blueish I'd suggest.

Answer 8

Violet is a much deeper and harder colour than purple.

Answer 9

purple is the primary colour to which violet is made,and all other lilac type colours come from.It is the same as red is the primary colour for all reddish shades including burgundy,pink etc.

Answer 10

Purple has more blue in the mix while violet has more red.