Emerald
- HEX
- #50C878
- RGB
- 80 200 120
- HSL
- 140° 52% 55%
- CMYK
- 60 0 40 22
Emerald or Kelly green?
Cooler and bluer than kelly green.
Science
Emerald is green beryl. Pure beryl is colorless; a trace of chromium, or sometimes vanadium, turns it green.
History
Egypt's Eastern Desert emerald mines were opened under the Ptolemies, after 300 BCE, and worked hard by the Romans. Spanish conquerors later found far richer stones in Colombia, which became the world's great source. Emerald green paint was something else: a copper-arsenic pigment made from 1814 and sold as Paris green. See arsenic-greens.
Poetry
In L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), the Emerald City is only as green as its visitors' glasses: everyone inside must wear green spectacles, locked on.
Design
Pantone made Emerald its Color of the Year for 2013.
Culture
Romans believed green rested the eyes, and ground emeralds into eye balms. The famous story that Nero watched gladiators through an emerald, like sunglasses, probably misreads Suetonius: he seems to have rested his eyes by gazing into a large one, as medieval scribes later did with theirs.
Language
Emerald comes from Greek smaragdos, a word that once covered almost any green stone. Emerald belongs to the beryl family, and polished beryl was used for early lenses, which is why the German word for glasses is Brille. Peridot, a yellower green gem, was long sold as the 'evening emerald', because it keeps its glow by lamplight.
Kin
- Viridian: Chromium colors emerald, and viridian is a chromium oxide
- Kelly green: Ireland, the Emerald Isle
- Jade: Spain met both in the Americas: emeralds in Colombia, jade in Mexico
- Green: Emerald green paint was one of the deadly arsenic greens
- Orchid: Pantone's Color of the Year right after Emerald, in 2014
Sources
- Wikipedia, 'Emerald' (chromium/vanadium)
- Harrell, J. A. (2004). Archaeological geology of the world's first emerald mine. Geoscience Canada 31(2)
- Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
- Pantone, Color of the Year 2013: Emerald 17-5641
- Pastoureau, Green: The History of a Color (2014)
- St Clair, The Secret Lives of Colour (2016)
- Finlay, Jewels: A Secret History (2006)
- Etymonline, 'emerald', 'beryl'
Hex values are screen approximations. Every page lists its sources.