The Rainbow of Colors

Part 1: Red is the salt of color

This is part one of “My Color Pilgrimage,” a five-part series on the wonderful world of color. Read the introduction here.

With the rainbow, nature presents color in a pure, abstract, and elegant form.

For many years, teachers used the ROYGBIV acronym to help students memorize the color spectrum in a rainbow. These days, we’ve reconceived the spectrum as three primary and three secondary colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. However, it’s not possible to establish how many colors “really” make up the spectrum; depending on where we say one color ends and another begins, and how many colors get their own names, the spectrum could include any number of colors.

Red

Around the world, in the early days of language, red was the first true color to get a name. For centuries, red was the color of war, until it was replaced by the colors of camouflage. Red is an intensifier. As color historian Michel Pastoureau points out in his history Red, “Red wine is thought to be more invigorating than white, red meat more fortifying than white, red cars…faster than others.” When people give wine as a formal gift, they usually give red wine. Red is the salt of color.

“If you can’t make it good, make it big; if you can’t make it big, make it red.”
- Attributed to Paul Rand

Orange

In many languages, orange was one of the very last colors named in the rainbow—if it gets a name at all.