Magenta

This article is about the dye color magenta. For other uses, see Magenta (disambiguation).

Magenta is a color that is not a spectral color: that is to say, the hue cannot be generated by light of a single wavelength.

A magenta hue can be witnessed by mixing equal amounts of red and blue light. As such, magenta is the complement of green: magenta pigments absorb green light. With yellow and cyan, it constitutes the three subtractive primary colors.

spectral reflectance curve

History

Magenta was one of the first aniline dyes, discovered shortly after the Battle of Magenta (1859), which occurred near the town of Magenta in northern Italy. The color is named after the battle, and hence indirectly after the town.

The difference between magenta and purple is the amount of red/blue in the color.

A variant of magenta is Fuchsia after the color of the flowers of the same name, named after Leonhart Fuchs.

If the visible spectrum is wrapped to form a color wheel, magenta appears between red and blue:

See also

• List of colors