Red
- HEX
- #D62F2F
- RGB
- 214 47 47
- HSL
- 0° 67% 51%
- CMYK
- 0 78 78 16
History
The oldest paint workshop on Earth made red. About 100,000 years ago, people at Blombos Cave in South Africa ground red ochre, mixed it with bone and charcoal, and stored the paste in abalone shells. Later reds raised the stakes: vermilion from mercury ore, and dyes from crushed insects, kermes and cochineal.
Language
Red is one of the oldest color words we have. English red, Latin ruber and Greek erythros grow from one ancient root. Berlin and Kay found that a language with only three color words almost always has black, white and red. Medieval scribes wrote headings in red ink, so a heading became a rubric, from rubrica, red earth.
Symbolism
In alchemy, red is the finish line. The Great Work ran from black to white to yellow and ended in rubedo, the reddening that meant the philosopher's stone was done. Heraldry calls red gules. The Catholic Church wears red at Pentecost and on martyrs' feasts (liturgical-colors). In China, red means weddings and luck, and New Year money comes in red envelopes.
Science
Red is the long-wave end of the spectrum, light of roughly 620 to 750 nanometers. A famous 2005 study found Olympic fighters in red won more bouts. A 2024 meta-analysis of over 6,500 bouts, co-written by the same researchers, found red won just 50.5%: no reliable red advantage. See color-psychology.
Culture
Two red myths. Bulls aren't enraged by red: they see color roughly like a red-green color-blind person and charge the cape's movement, and the matador's magenta-and-blue cape works just as well. And Santa wore red long before Coca-Cola's 1930s ads; his costume probably echoes the red robes of St Nicholas the bishop.
Kin
- Ochre: Red ochre was humanity's first red, ground 100,000 years ago
- Crimson: Named for kermes, the insect behind Europe's finest medieval reds
- Vermilion: The mercury-ore red of the old masters
- Black: Alchemy's Great Work begins in black and ends in red
- Green: Its opposite on the painter's wheel, and on every traffic light
Sources
- Henshilwood et al., 'A 100,000-year-old ochre-processing workshop at Blombos Cave', Science 334 (2011)
- Berlin & Kay, Basic Color Terms (1969); Etymonline, 'red', 'rubric'
- Hill & Barton, 'Red enhances human performance in contests', Nature 435: 293 (2005)
- Peperkoorn, Hill, Barton & Pollet, 'Meta-analysis of the red advantage in combat sports', Scientific Reports 14: 30822 (2024)
- Britannica, 'Alchemy'; 'Tincture (heraldry)'
- St Clair, The Secret Lives of Colour (2016)
- Eckstut & Eckstut, What Is Color? (2020)
- Pastoureau, Red: The History of a Color (2017)
Hex values are screen approximations. Every page lists its sources.