Color Chronicles: Pure Coquelicot

The color coquelicot is a bright red, containing a tinge of orange that makes this shade almost neon. The name came from the French vernacular name of wild corn poppy, Papaver rhoeas, before being passed down to the English language as a color. The Collins Dictionary noted that the word first appeared in 1799.

The poppy flower's color has been the center of attention during the olden times. According to non-profit aesthetics organization HiSoUR, coquelicot's old names are ponceau and culvert, and French scholar and lexicographer Antoine Furetière of the medieval times noted that the ribbon culvert is the most expensive ribbon, as it is a ribbon ‘dyed in the color of fire’.

Coquelicot is prominently used in French Impressionist painter Claude Monet's Les Coquelicots or Poppies Blooming in 1873. American Impressioist Robert William Vonnoh also used the color in the painting_Coquelicots (1890).

To achieve the closest imitation of coquelicot, the best way is to find red objects outdoors then using color slide films like the Lomography XPro 200 as the emulsion, as the reversal film process makes colors more saturated.

2018-07-21 #culture #coquelicot #color-chronicles