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indigo-What is the meaning of indigo color?

What is the meaning of indigo color?

Indigo is a deep and rich color that lives between blue and violet. The color indigo represents tranquility but also mystery. Indigo color is also sometimes used to represent harmony and intuition. Like a shroud over the night sky, it is absolute.

The color indigo has the calmness of blue and the kinetic energy of red. These qualities promote concentration, introspection, and a degree of mystique.

The history of indigo color.

The plant indigo was cultivated in East Asia, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and Peru.

Indigo (indigofera tinctoria) was cultivated in East Asia, Egypt, India, and — halfway around the world — Peru. Indigo was used to create a dependable dye that was used to create lasting, rich shades between blue and violet. Indigo was exported from India to Europe, which is how the plant gained the name “indigo” in English.

Indigo is the oldest blue pigment and was often used when blue and purple were unavailable.

Indigo was used to make blue dye and became a popular export from India to Europe. Starting in the colonialism era of Europe, indigo became frequently used as a substitute for blue, which was the most expensive pigment through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Indigo was also used in the Vatican as part of cardinal purple. Textiles were dyed indigo and then layered with red to create a purple hue.

Indigo was considered one of the seven base colors in the work of Sir Isaac Newton.

It was the mid-1600s when a young Isaac Newton pierced a prism with a beam of light. The light sent through the prism cast a rainbow strip on the wall. Newton identified seven base colors in that rainbow, and indigo was the final and deepest one. For centuries, this classification was used throughout science. Modern optics divide the spectrum into blue and violet instead and no longer include indigo.

Bromo indigo; Vat bromo-indigo; C.I.Vat blue 5

The color indigo across different cultures.

Indigo traveled the world after its harvest by colonial populations.

The colonial history in India and Latin America meant that indigo was cultivated and exported around the world. Indigo played a particularly big role in the exportations of Guatemala. From there, it arrived in the American colonies, where indigo was turned into a cash crop. Leading up to the Revolutionary War, indigo accounted for one-third of the exports from the American colonies.

Napoleon apparently couldn’t shake the color indigo.

The French Army adopted indigo as the principal color of its uniforms around the French Revolution. In 1804, however, Napoleon tried to readopt white coats after a British blockade blocked the importation of indigo. The indigo color coats were so much more practical for the army, though, that indigo remained the color of the French military until the early 1900s. Napoleon used 150 tons of indigo per year to continue to dye the uniforms.

Indigo color dye met the world’s workers.

Indigo was a readily available alternative to rich royal blue and it took on new meanings after mass production was made possible. So-called “blue-collar” workers wore collars that were dyed with indigo so they wouldn’t show dirt as quickly. In China, the color indigo in the famed Mao suit associated indigo with workers in another way. Then, the first blue jeans — dyed with indigo — forever tied indigo color to the workforce.

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