Red is the color at the end of the visible
spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite
violet.
It has a dominant wavelength of approximately
625–740 nanometres.
It is a primary color in the RGB color model
and the CMYK color model, and is the complementary
color of cyan.
Reds range from the brilliant yellow-tinged
scarlet and vermillion to bluish-red crimson,
and vary in shade from the pale red pink to
the dark red burgundy.
The red sky at sunset results from Rayleigh
scattering, while the red color of the Grand
Canyon and other geological features is caused
by hematite or red ochre, both forms of iron
oxide.
Iron oxide also gives the red color to the
planet Mars.
The red colour of blood comes from protein
hemoglobin, while ripe strawberries, red apples
and reddish autumn leaves are colored by anthocyanins.Red
pigment made from ochre was one of the first
colors used in prehistoric art.
The Ancient Egyptians and Mayans colored their
faces red in ceremonies; Roman generals had
their bodies colored red to celebrate victories.
It was also an important color in China, where
it was used to colour early pottery and later
the gates and walls of palaces.
In the Renaissance, the brilliant red costumes
for the nobility and wealthy were dyed with
kermes and cochineal.
The 19th century brought the introduction
of the first synthetic red dyes, which replaced
the traditional dyes.
Red also became the color of revolution; Soviet
Russia adopted a red flag following the Bolshevik
Revolution in 1917, later followed by China,
Vietnam, and other communist countries.
Since red is the color of blood, it has historically
been associated with sacrifice, danger and
courage.
Modern surveys in Europe and the United States
show red is also the color most commonly associated
with heat, activity, passion, sexuality, anger,
love and joy.
In China, India and many other Asian countries
it is the color of symbolizing happiness and
good fortune.
== Shades and variations ==
See also below for shades of pink
== 
In science and nature ==
=== 
Seeing red ===
The human eye sees red when it looks at light
with a wavelength between approximately 625
and 740 nanometers.
It is a primary color in the RGB color model
and the light just past this range is called
infrared, or below red, and cannot be seen
by human eyes, although it can be sensed as
heat.
In the language of optics, red is the color
evoked by light that stimulates neither the
S or the M (short and medium wavelength) cone
cells of the retina, combined with a fading
stimulation of the L (long-wavelength) cone
cells.Primates can distinguish the full range
of the colors of the spectrum visible to humans,
but many kinds of mammals, such as dogs and
cattle, have dichromacy, which means they
can see blues and yellows, but cannot distinguish
red and green (both are seen as gray).
Bulls, for instance, cannot see the red color
of the cape of a bullfighter, but they are
agitated by its movement.
(See color vision).
One theory for why primates developed sensitivity
to red is that it allowed ripe fruit to be
distinguished from unripe fruit and inedible
vegetation.
This may have driven further adaptations by
species taking advantage of this new ability,
such as the emergence of red faces.Red light
is used to help adapt night vision in low-light
or night time, as the rod cells in the human
eye are not sensitive to red.Red illumination
was (and sometimes still is) used as a safelight
while working in a darkroom as it does not
expose most photographic paper and some films.
Today modern darkrooms usually use an amber
safelight.
=== In color theory and on a computer screen
===
On the color wheel long used by painters,
and in traditional color theory, red is one
of the three primary colors, along with blue
and yellow.
Painters in the Renaissance mixed red and
blue to make violet: Cennino Cennini, in his
15th-century manual on painting, wrote, "If
you want to make a lovely violet colour, take
fine lac [red lake], ultramarine blue (the
same amount of the one as of the other) with
a binder" he noted that it could also be made
by mixing blue indigo and red hematite.In
modern color theory, also known as the RGB
color model, red, green and blue are additive
primary colors.
Red, green and blue light combined together
makes white light, and these three colors,
combined in different mixtures, can produce
nearly any other color.
This is the principle that is used to make
all of the colors on your computer screen
and your television.
For example, magenta on a computer screen
is made by a similar formula to that used
by Cennino Cennini in the Renaissance to make
violet, but using additive colors and light
instead of pigment: it is created by combining
red and blue light at equal intensity on a
black screen.
Violet is made on a computer screen in a similar
way, but with a greater amount of blue light
and less red light.(See Web colors and RGB
color model)
=== Color of sunset ===
As a ray of white sunlight travels through
the atmosphere to the eye, some of the colors
are scattered out of the beam by air molecules
and airborne particles due to Rayleigh scattering,
changing the final color of the beam that
is seen.
Colors with a shorter wavelength, such as
blue and green, scatter more strongly, and
are removed from the light that finally reaches
the eye.
At sunrise and sunset, when the path of the
sunlight through the atmosphere to the eye
is longest, the blue and green components
are removed almost completely, leaving the
longer wavelength orange and red light.
The remaining reddened sunlight can also be
scattered by cloud droplets and other relatively
large particles, which give the sky above
the horizon its red glow.
=== Lasers ===
Lasers emitting in the red region of the spectrum
have been available since the invention of
the ruby laser in 1960.
In 1962 the red helium–neon laser was invented,
and these two types of lasers were widely
used in many scientific applications including
holography, and in education.
Red helium–neon lasers were used commercially
in LaserDisc players.
The use of red laser diodes became widespread
with the commercial success of modern DVD
players, which use a 660 nm laser diode technology.
Today, red and red-orange laser diodes are
widely available to the public in the form
of extremely inexpensive laser pointers.
Portable, high-powered versions are also available
for various applications.
More recently, 671 nm diode-pumped solid state
(DPSS) lasers have been introduced to the
market for all-DPSS laser display systems,
particle image velocimetry, Raman spectroscopy,
and holography.Red's wavelength has been an
important factor in laser technologies; red
lasers, used in early compact disc technologies,
are being replaced by blue lasers, as red's
longer wavelength causes the laser's recordings
to take up more space on the disc than would
blue-laser recordings.
=== Astronomy ===
Mars is called the Red Planet because of the
reddish color imparted to its surface by the
abundant iron oxide present there.
Astronomical objects that are moving away
from the observer exhibit a Doppler red shift.
Jupiter's surface displays a Great Red Spot
caused by an oval-shaped mega storm south
of the planet's equator.
Red giants are stars that have exhausted the
supply of hydrogen in their cores and switched
to thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen in a shell
that surrounds its core.
They have radii tens to hundreds of times
larger than that of the Sun.
However, their outer envelope is much lower
in temperature, giving them an orange hue.
Despite the lower energy density of their
envelope, red giants are many times more luminous
than the Sun due to their large size.
Red supergiants like Betelgeuse, Antares and
VY Canis Majoris, one of the biggest stars
in the Universe, are the biggest variety of
red giants.
They are huge in size, with radii 200 to 2600
times greater than our Sun, but relatively
cool in temperature (3000–4500 K), causing
their distinct red tint.
Because they are shrinking rapidly in size,
they are surrounded by an envelope or skin
much bigger than the star itself.
The envelope of Betelgeuse is 250 times bigger
than the star inside.
A red dwarf is a small and relatively cool
star, which has a mass of less than half that
of the Sun and a surface temperature of less
than 4,000 K. Red dwarfs are by far the most
common type of star in the Galaxy, but due
to their low luminosity, from Earth, none
are visible to the naked eye.
=== Fire ===
Fire is often shown as red in art, but flames
are usually yellow, orange or blue.
Coals are in the red spectrum, as are most
burning items.
Some elements exhibit a red color when burned:
calcium, for example, produces a brick-red
when combusted.
=== Pigments and dyes ===
=== 
Red lac, red lake and crimson lake ===
Red lac, also called red lake, crimson lake
or carmine lake, was an important red pigment
in Renaissance and Baroque art.
Since it was translucent, thin layers of red
lac were built up or glazed over a more opaque
dark color to create a particularly deep and
vivid color.
Unlike vermilion or red ochre, made from minerals,
red lake pigments are made by mixing organic
dyes, made from insects or plants, with white
chalk or alum.
Red lac was made from the gum lac, the dark
red resinous substance secreted by various
scale insects, particularly the Laccifer lacca
from India.
Carmine lake was made from the cochineal insect
from Central and South America, Kermes lake
came from a different scale insect, kermes
vermilio, which thrived on oak trees around
the Mediterranean.
Other red lakes were made from the rose madder
plant and from the brazilwood tree.
Red lake pigments were an important part of
the palette of 16th-century Venetian painters,
particularly Titian, but they were used in
all periods.
Since the red lakes were made from organic
dyes, they tended to be fugitive, becoming
unstable and fading when exposed to sunlight.
=== Food coloring ===
The most common synthetic food coloring today
is Allura Red AC is a red azo dye that goes
by several names including: Allura Red, Food
Red 17, C.I. 16035, FD&C Red 40, It was originally
manufactured from coal tar, but now is mostly
made from petroleum.
In Europe, Allura Red AC is not recommended
for consumption by children.
It is banned in Denmark, Belgium, France and
Switzerland, and was also banned in Sweden
until the country joined the European Union
in 1994.
The European Union approves Allura Red AC
as a food colorant, but EU countries' local
laws banning food colorants are preserved.In
the United States, Allura Red AC is approved
by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
for use in cosmetics, drugs, and food.
It is used in some tattoo inks and is used
in many products, such as soft drinks, children's
medications, and cotton candy.
On June 30, 2010, the Center for Science in
the Public Interest (CSPI) called for the
FDA to ban Red 40.Because of public concerns
about possible health risks associated with
synthetic dyes, many companies have switched
to using natural pigments such as carmine,
made from crushing the tiny female cochineal
insect.
This insect, originating in Mexico and Central
America, was used to make the brilliant scarlet
dyes of the European Renaissance.
=== Autumn leaves ===
The red of autumn leaves is produced by pigments
called anthocyanins.
They are not present in the leaf throughout
the growing season, but are actively produced
towards the end of summer.
They develop in late summer in the sap of
the cells of the leaf, and this development
is the result of complex interactions of many
influences—both inside and outside the plant.
Their formation depends on the breakdown of
sugars in the presence of bright light as
the level of phosphate in the leaf is reduced.During
the summer growing season, phosphate is at
a high level.
It has a vital role in the breakdown of the
sugars manufactured by chlorophyll.
But in the fall, phosphate, along with the
other chemicals and nutrients, moves out of
the leaf into the stem of the plant.
When this happens, the sugar-breakdown process
changes, leading to the production of anthocyanin
pigments.
The brighter the light during this period,
the greater the production of anthocyanins
and the more brilliant the resulting color
display.
When the days of autumn are bright and cool,
and the nights are chilly but not freezing,
the brightest colorations usually develop.
Anthocyanins temporarily color the edges of
some of the very young leaves as they unfold
from the buds in early spring.
They also give the familiar color to such
common fruits as cranberries, red apples,
blueberries, cherries, raspberries, and plums.
Anthocyanins are present in about 10% of tree
species in temperate regions, although in
certain areas—a famous example being New
England—up to 70% of tree species may produce
the pigment.
In autumn forests they appear vivid in the
maples, oaks, sourwood, sweetgums, dogwoods,
tupelos, cherry trees and persimmons.
These same pigments often combine with the
carotenoids' colors to create the deeper orange,
fiery reds, and bronzes typical of many hardwood
species.
(See Autumn leaf color).
=== Blood and other reds in nature ===
Oxygenated blood is red due to the presence
of oxygenated hemoglobin that contains iron
molecules, with the iron components reflecting
red light.
Red meat gets its color from the iron found
in the myoglobin and hemoglobin in the muscles
and residual blood.Plants like apples, strawberries,
cherries, tomatoes, peppers, and pomegranates
are often colored by forms of carotenoids,
red pigments that also assist photosynthesis.
When used to describe natural animal coloration,
"red" usually refers to a brownish, reddish-brown
or ginger color.
In this sense it is used to describe coat
colors of reddish-brown cattle and dogs, and
in the names of various animal species or
breeds such as red fox, red squirrel, red
deer, European robin, red grouse, red knot,
redstart, redwing, red setter, Red Devon cattle,
etc.
This reddish-brown color is also meant when
using the terms red ochre and red hair.
The red herring dragged across a trail to
destroy the scent gets its color from the
heavy salting and slow smoking of the fish,
which results in a warm, brown color.
When used for flowers, red often refers to
purplish (red deadnettle, red clover, red
helleborine) or pink (red campion, red valerian)
colors.
=== Hair color ===
Red hair occurs naturally on approximately
1–2% of the human population.
It occurs more frequently (2–6%) in people
of northern or western European ancestry,
and less frequently in other populations.
Red hair appears in people with two copies
of a recessive gene on chromosome 16 which
causes a mutation in the MC1R protein.Red
hair varies from a deep burgundy through burnt
orange to bright copper.
It is characterized by high levels of the
reddish pigment pheomelanin (which also accounts
for the red color of the lips) and relatively
low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin.
The term redhead (originally redd hede) has
been in use since at least 1510.
Cultural reactions have varied from ridicule
to admiration; many common stereotypes exist
regarding redheads and they are often portrayed
as fiery-tempered.
(See red hair).
=== In animal and human behavior ===
Red is associated with dominance in a number
of animal species.
For example, in mandrills, red coloration
of the face is greatest in alpha males, increasingly
less prominent in lower ranking subordinates,
and directly correlated with levels of testosterone.
Red can also affect the perception of dominance
by others, leading to significant differences
in mortality, reproductive success and parental
investment between individuals displaying
red and those not.
In humans, wearing red has been linked with
increased performance in competitions, including
professional sport and multiplayer video games.
Controlled tests have demonstrated that wearing
red does not increase performance or levels
of testosterone during exercise, so the effect
is likely to be produced by perceived rather
than actual performance.
Judges of tae kwon do have been shown to favor
competitors wearing red protective gear over
blue, and, when asked, a significant majority
of people say that red abstract shapes are
more "dominant", "aggressive", and "likely
to win a physical competition" than blue shapes.
In contrast to its positive effect in physical
competition and dominance behavior, exposure
to red decreases performance in cognitive
tasks and elicits aversion in psychological
tests where subjects are placed in an "achievement"
context (e.g. taking an IQ test).
== History and art ==
=== 
Prehistory ===
Inside cave 13B at Pinnacle Point, an archeological
site found on the coast of South Africa, paleoanthropologists
in 2000 found evidence that, between 170,000
and 40,000 years ago, Late Stone Age people
were scraping and grinding ochre, a clay colored
red by iron oxide, probably with the intention
of using it to color their bodies.Red hematite
powder was also found scattered around the
remains at a grave site in a Zhoukoudian cave
complex near Beijing.
The site has evidence of habitation as early
as 700,000 years ago.
The hematite might have been used to symbolize
blood in an offering to the dead.Red, black
and white were the first colors used by artists
in the Upper Paleolithic age, probably because
natural pigments such as red ochre and iron
oxide were readily available where early people
lived.
Madder, a plant whose root could be made into
a red dye, grew widely in Europe, Africa and
Asia.
The cave of Altamira in Spain has a painting
of a bison colored with red ochre that dates
to between 15,000 and 16,500 BC.
A red dye called Kermes was made beginning
in the Neolithic Period by drying and then
crushing the bodies of the females of a tiny
scale insect in the genus Kermes, primarily
Kermes vermilio.
The insects live on the sap of certain trees,
especially Kermes oak trees near the Mediterranean
region.
Jars of kermes have been found in a Neolithic
cave-burial at Adaoutse, Bouches-du-Rhône.
Kermes from oak trees was later used by Romans,
who imported it from Spain.
A different variety of dye was made from Porphyrophora
hamelii (Armenian cochineal) scale insects
that lived on the roots and stems of certain
herbs.
It was mentioned in texts as early as the
8th century BC, and it was used by the ancient
Assyrians and Persians.Kermes is also mentioned
in the Bible.
In the Book of Exodus, God instructs Moses
to have the Israelites bring him an offering
including cloth "of blue, and purple, and
scarlet."
The term used for scarlet in the 4th-century
Latin Vulgate version of the Bible passage
is coccumque bis tinctum, meaning "colored
twice with coccus."
Coccus, from the ancient Greek Kokkos, means
a tiny grain and is the term that was used
in ancient times for the Kermes vermilio insect
used to make the Kermes dye.
This was also the origin of the expression
"dyed in the grain."
=== 
Ancient history ===
In ancient Egypt, red was associated with
life, health, and victory.
Egyptians would color themselves with red
ochre during celebrations.
Egyptian women used red ochre as a cosmetic
to redden cheeks and lips and also used henna
to color their hair and paint their nails.But,
like many colors, it also had a negative association,
with heat, destruction and evil.
A prayer to god Isis states: "Oh Isis, protect
me from all things evil and red."
The ancient Egyptians began manufacturing
pigments in about 4000 BC.
Red ochre was widely used as a pigment for
wall paintings, particularly as the skin color
of men.
An ivory painter's palette found inside the
tomb of King Tutankhamun had small compartments
with pigments of red ochre and five other
colors.
The Egyptians used the root of the rubia,
or madder plant, to make a dye, later known
as alizarin, and also used it as a pigment,
which became known as madder lake, alizarin
or alizarin crimson.In Ancient China, artisans
were making red and black painted pottery
as early as the Yangshao Culture period (5000–3000
BC).
A red-painted wooden bowl was found at a Neolithic
site in Yuyao, Zhejiang.
Other red-painted ceremonial objects have
been found at other sites dating to the Spring
and Autumn period (770–221 BC).During the
Han dynasty (200 BC–200 AD) Chinese craftsmen
made a red pigment, lead tetroxide, which
they called ch-ien tan, by heating lead white
pigment.
Like the Egyptians, they made a red dye from
the madder plant to color silk fabric for
gowns and used pigments colored with madder
to make red lacquerware.
Red lead or Lead tetroxide pigment was widely
used as the red in Persian and Indian miniature
paintings as well as in European art, where
it was called minium.In India, the rubia plant
has been used to make dye since ancient times.
A piece of cotton dyed with rubia dated to
the third millennium BC was found at an archaeological
site at Mohenjo-daro.
It has been used by Indian monks and hermits
for centuries to dye their robes.
The early inhabitants of America had their
own vivid crimson dye, made from the cochineal,
an insect of the same family as the Kermes
of Europe and the Middle East, which feeds
on the Opuntia, or prickly pear cactus plant.
Red-dyed textiles from the Paracas culture
(800–100 BC) have been found in tombs in
Peru.Red also featured in the burials of royalty
in the Maya city-states.
In the Tomb of the Red Queen inside Temple
XIII in the ruined Maya city of Palenque (600–700
AD), the skeleton and ceremonial items of
a noble woman were completely covered with
bright red powder made from cinnabar.
In ancient Greece and the Minoan civilization
of ancient Crete, red was widely used in murals
and in the polychrome decoration of temples
and palaces.
The Greeks began using red lead as a pigment.
Romans wore togas with red stripes on holidays,
and the bride at a wedding wore a red shawl,
called a flammeum.
Red was used to color statues and the skin
of gladiators.
Red was also the color associated with army;
Roman soldiers wore red tunics, and officers
wore a cloak called a paludamentum which,
depending upon the quality of the dye, could
be crimson, scarlet or purple.
In Roman mythology red is associated with
the god of war, Mars.
The vexilloid of the Roman Empire had a red
background with the letters SPQR in gold.
A Roman general receiving a triumph had his
entire body painted red in honor of his achievement.The
Romans liked bright colors, and many Roman
villas were decorated with vivid red murals.
The pigment used for many of the murals was
called vermilion, and it came from the mineral
cinnabar, a common ore of mercury.
It was one of the finest reds of ancient times
– the paintings have retained their brightness
for more than twenty centuries.
The source of cinnabar for the Romans was
a group of mines near Almadén, southwest
of Madrid, in Spain.
Working in the mines was extremely dangerous,
since mercury is highly toxic; the miners
were slaves or prisoners, and being sent to
the cinnabar mines was a virtual death sentence.
=== Postclassical history ===
==== 
In Europe ====
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire,
red was adopted as a color of majesty and
authority by the Byzantine Empire, the princes
of Europe, and the Roman Catholic Church.
It also played an important part in the rituals
of the Catholic Church – it symbolized the
blood of Christ and the Christian martyrs
– and it associated the power of the kings
with the sacred rituals of the Church.Red
was the color of the banner of the Byzantine
emperors.
In Western Europe, Emperor Charlemagne painted
his palace red as a very visible symbol of
his authority, and wore red shoes at his coronation.
Kings, princes and, beginning in 1295, Roman
Catholic cardinals began to wear red colored
habitus.
When Abbe Suger rebuilt Saint Denis Basilica
outside Paris in the early 12th century, he
added stained glass windows colored blue cobalt
glass and red glass tinted with copper.
Together they flooded the basilica with a
mystical light.
Soon stained glass windows were being added
to cathedrals all across France, England and
Germany.
In medieval painting red was used to attract
attention to the most important figures; both
Christ and the Virgin Mary were commonly painted
wearing red mantles.
Red clothing was a sign of status and wealth.
It was worn not only by cardinals and princes,
but also by merchants, artisans and townspeople,
particularly on holidays or special occasions.
Red dye for the clothing of ordinary people
was made from the roots of the rubia tinctorum,
the madder plant.
This color leaned toward brick-red, and faded
easily in the sun or during washing.
The wealthy and aristocrats wore scarlet clothing
dyed with kermes, or carmine, made from the
carminic acid in tiny female scale insects,
which lived on the leaves of oak trees in
Eastern Europe and around the Mediterranean.
The insects were gathered, dried, crushed,
and boiled with different ingredients in a
long and complicated process, which produced
a brilliant scarlet.Brazilin was another popular
red dye in the Middle Ages.
It came from the sapanwood tree, which grew
in India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.
A similar tree, brazilwood, grew on the coast
of South America.
The red wood was ground into sawdust and mixed
with an alkaline solution to make dye and
pigment.
It became one of the most profitable exports
from the New World, and gave its name to the
nation of Brazil.
==== In Asia ====
Red has been an important color in Chinese
culture, religion, industry, fashion and court
ritual since ancient times.
Silk was woven and dyed as early as the Han
Dynasty (25–220 BC).
China had a monopoly on the manufacture of
silk until the 6th century AD, when it was
introduced into the Byzantine Empire.
In the 12th century, it was introduced into
Europe.At the time of the Han Dynasty, Chinese
red was a light red, but during the Tang dynasty
new dyes and pigments were discovered.
The Chinese used several different plants
to make red dyes, including the flowers of
the safflour (Carthamus tinctorius), the thorns
and stems of a variety of sorghum plant called
Kao-liang, and the wood of the sappanwood
tree.
For pigments, they used cinnabar, which produced
the famous vermillion or "Chinese red" of
Chinese lacquerware.Red played an important
role in Chinese philosophy.
It was believed that the world was composed
of five elements: metal, wood, water, fire
and earth, and that each had a color.
Red was associated with fire.
Each Emperor chose the color that his fortune-tellers
believed would bring the most prosperity and
good fortune to his reign.
During the Zhou, Han, Jin, Song and Ming Dynasties,
red was considered a noble color, and it was
featured in all court ceremonies, from coronations
to sacrificial offerings, and weddings.Red
was also a badge of rank.
During the Song dynasty (906–1279), officials
of the top three ranks wore purple clothes;
those of the fourth and fifth wore bright
red; those of the sixth and seventh wore green;
and the eighth and ninth wore blue.
Red was the color worn by the royal guards
of honor, and the color of the carriages of
the imperial family.
When the imperial family traveled, their servants
and accompanying officials carried red and
purple umbrellas.
Of an official who had talent and ambition,
it was said "he is so red he becomes purple."Red
was also featured in Chinese Imperial architecture.
In the Tang and Song Dynasties, gates of palaces
were usually painted red, and nobles often
painted their entire mansion red.
One of the most famous works of Chinese literature,
A Dream of Red Mansions by Cao Xueqin (1715–63),
was about the lives of noble women who passed
their lives out of public sight within the
walls of such mansions.
In later dynasties red was reserved for the
walls of temples and imperial residences.
When the Manchu rulers of the Qing Dynasty
conquered the Ming and took over the Forbidden
City and Imperial Palace in Beijing, all the
walls, gates, beams and pillars were painted
in red and gold.Red is not often used in traditional
Chinese paintings, which are usually black
ink on white paper with a little green sometimes
added for trees or plants; but the round or
square seals which contain the name of the
artist are traditionally red.
=== Modern history ===
==== 
In the 16th and 17th centuries ====
In Renaissance painting, red was used to draw
the attention of the viewer; it was often
used as the color of the cloak or costume
of Christ, the Virgin Mary, or another central
figure.
In Venice, Titian was the master of fine reds,
particularly vermilion; he used many layers
of pigment mixed with a semi-transparent glaze,
which let the light pass through, to create
a more luminous color.
During the Renaissance trade routes were opened
to the New World, to Asia and the Middle East,
and new varieties of red pigment and dye were
imported into Europe, usually through Venice,
Genoa or Seville, and Marseille.
Venice was the major depot importing and manufacturing
pigments for artists and dyers from the end
of the 15th century; the catalog of a Venetian
Vendecolori, or pigment seller, from 1534
included vermilion and kermes.
There were guilds of dyers who specialized
in red in Venice and other large Europeans
cities.
The Rubia plant was used to make the most
common dye; it produced an orange-red or brick
red color used to dye the clothes of merchants
and artisans.
For the wealthy, the dye used was kermes,
made from a tiny scale insect which fed on
the branches and leaves of the oak tree.
For those with even more money there was Polish
Cochineal; also known as Kermes vermilio or
"Blood of Saint John", which was made from
a related insect, the Margodes polonicus.
It made a more vivid red than ordinary Kermes.
The finest and most expensive variety of red
made from insects was the "Kermes" of Armenia
(Armenian cochineal, also known as Persian
kirmiz), made by collecting and crushing Porphyophora
hamelii, an insect which lived on the roots
and stems of certain grasses.
The pigment and dye merchants of Venice imported
and sold all of these products and also manufactured
their own color, called Venetian red, which
was considered the most expensive and finest
red in Europe.
Its secret ingredient was arsenic, which brightened
the color.But early in the 16th century, a
brilliant new red appeared in Europe.
When the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés
and his soldiers conquered the Aztec Empire
in 1519–21, they discovered slowly that
the Aztecs had another treasure beside silver
and gold; they had the tiny cochineal, a parasitic
scale insect which lived on cactus plants,
which, when dried and crushed, made a magnificent
red.
The cochineal in Mexico was closely related
to the Kermes varieties of Europe, but unlike
European Kermes, it could be harvested several
times a year, and it was ten times stronger
than the Kermes of Poland.
It worked particularly well on silk, satin
and other luxury textiles.
In 1523 Cortes sent the first shipment to
Spain.
Soon cochineal began to arrive in European
ports aboard convoys of Spanish galleons.At
first the guilds of dyers in Venice and other
cities banned cochineal to protect their local
products, but the superior quality of cochineal
dye made it impossible to resist.
By the beginning of the 17th century it was
the preferred luxury red for the clothing
of cardinals, bankers, courtesans and aristocrats.The
painters of the early Renaissance used two
traditional lake pigments, made from mixing
dye with either chalk or alum, kermes lake,
made from kermes insects, and madder lake,
made from the rubia tinctorum plant.
With the arrival of cochineal, they had a
third, carmine, which made a very fine crimson,
though it had a tendency to change color if
not used carefully.
It was used by almost all the great painters
of the 15th and 16th centuries, including
Rembrandt, Vermeer, Rubens, Anthony van Dyck,
Diego Velázquez and Tintoretto.
Later it was used by Thomas Gainsborough,
Seurat and J.M.W.
Turner.
==== In the 18th and 19th centuries ====
During the French Revolution, the Jacobins
and other more radical parties adopted the
red flag; it was taken from red flags hoisted
by the French government to declare a state
of siege or emergency.
Many of them wore a red Phrygian cap, or liberty
cap, modeled after the caps worn by freed
slaves in Ancient Rome.
During the height of the Reign of Terror,
Women wearing red caps gathered around the
guillotine to celebrate each execution.
They were called the "Furies of the guillotine".
The guillotines used during the Reign of Terror
in 1792 and 1793 were painted red, or made
of red wood.
During the Reign of Terror a statue of a woman
titled liberty, painted red, was placed in
the square in front of the guillotine.
After the end of the Reign of Terror, France
went back to the blue, white and red tricolor,
whose red was taken from the red and blue
colors of the city of Paris, and was the traditional
color of Saint Denis, the Christian martyr
and patron saint of Paris.
In the mid-19th century, red became the color
of a new political and social movement, socialism.
It became the most common banner of the worker's
movement, of the French Revolution of 1848,
of the Paris Commune in 1870, and of socialist
parties across Europe.
(see red flags and revolution section below).
As the Industrial Revolution spread across
Europe, chemists and manufacturers sought
new red dyes that could be used for large-scale
manufacture of textiles.
One popular color imported into Europe from
Turkey and India in the 18th and early 19th
century was Turkey red, known in France as
rouge d'Adrinople.
Beginning in the 1740s, this bright red color
was used to dye or print cotton textiles in
England, the Netherlands and France.
Turkey red used madder as the colorant, but
the process was longer and more complicated,
involving multiple soaking of the fabrics
in lye, olive oil, sheep's dung, and other
ingredients.
The fabric was more expensive but resulted
in a fine bright and lasting red, similar
to carmine, perfectly suited to cotton.
The fabric was widely exported from Europe
to Africa, the Middle East and America.
In 19th-century America, it was widely used
in making the traditional patchwork quilt.In
1826, the French chemist Pierre-Jean Robiquet
discovered the organic compound alizarin,
the powerful coloring ingredient of the madder
root, the most popular red dye of the time.
In 1868, German chemists Carl Graebe and Liebermann
were able to synthesize alizarin, and to produce
it from coal tar.
The synthetic red was cheaper and more lasting
than the natural dye, and the plantation of
madder in Europe and import of cochineal from
Latin America soon almost completely ceased.
The 19th century also saw the use of red in
art to create specific emotions, not just
to imitate nature.
It saw the systematic study of color theory,
and particularly the study of how complementary
colors such as red and green reinforced each
other when they were placed next to each other.
These studies were avidly followed by artists
such as Vincent van Gogh.
Describing his painting, The Night Cafe, to
his brother Theo in 1888, Van Gogh wrote:
"I sought to express with red and green the
terrible human passions.
The hall is blood red and pale yellow, with
a green billiard table in the center, and
four lamps of lemon yellow, with rays of orange
and green.
Everywhere it is a battle and antithesis of
the most different reds and greens."
==== 
In the 20th and 21st centuries ====
In the 20th century, red was the color of
Revolution; it was the color of the Bolshevik
Revolution in 1917 and of the Chinese Revolution
of 1949, and later of the Cultural Revolution.
Red was the color of Communist Parties from
Eastern Europe to Cuba to Vietnam.
In the late 19th and early 20th century, the
German chemical industry invented two new
synthetic red pigments: cadmium red, which
was the color of natural vermilion, and mars
red, which was a synthetic red ochre, the
color of the very first natural red pigment.
The French painter Henri Matisse (1869–1954)
was one of the first prominent painters to
use the new cadmium red.
He even tried, without success, to persuade
the older and more traditional Renoir, his
neighbor in the south of France, to switch
from vermilion to cadmium red.Matisse was
also one of the first 20th-century artists
to make color the central element of the painting,
chosen to evoke emotions.
"A certain blue penetrates your soul", he
wrote.
"A certain red affects your blood pressure."
He also was familiar with the way that complementary
colors, such as red and green, strengthened
each other when they were placed next to each
other.
He wrote, "My choice of colors is not based
on scientific theory; it is based on observation,
upon feelings, upon the real nature of each
experience ... I just try to find a color
which corresponds to my feelings."Later in
the century, the American artist Mark Rothko
(1903–70) also used red, in even simpler
form, in blocks of dark, somber color on large
canvases, to inspire deep emotions.
Rothko observed that color was "only an instrument;"
his interest was "in expressing human emotions
tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on."Rothko
also began using the new synthetic pigments,
but not always with happy results.
In 1962 he donated to Harvard University a
series of large murals of the Passion of Christ
whose predominant colors were dark pink and
deep crimson.
He mixed mostly traditional colors to make
the pink and crimson; synthetic ultramarine,
cerulean blue, and titanium white, but he
also used two new organic reds, Naphtol and
Lithol.
The Naphtol did well, but the Lithol slowly
changed color when exposed to light.
Within five years the deep pinks and reds
had begun to turn light blue, and by 1979
the paintings were ruined and had to be taken
down.
== Symbolism ==
=== 
Courage and sacrifice ===
Surveys show that red is the color most associated
with courage.
In western countries red is a symbol of martyrs
and sacrifice, particularly because of its
association with blood.
Beginning in the Middle Ages, the Pope and
Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church wore
red to symbolize the blood of Christ and the
Christian martyrs.
The banner of the Christian soldiers in the
First Crusade was a red cross on a white field,
the St. George's Cross.
According to Christian tradition, Saint George
was a Roman soldier who was a member of the
guards of the Emperor Diocletian, who refused
to renounce his Christian faith and was martyred.
The Saint George's Cross became the Flag of
England in the 16th century, and now is part
of the Union Flag of the United Kingdom, as
well as the Flag of the Republic of Georgia.In
1587, Mary, Queen of Scots, accused of treason
against Queen Elizabeth I, wore a red shirt
at her execution, to proclaim that she was
an innocent martyr.The Thin Red Line was a
famous incident in the Battle of Balaclava
(1854) during the Crimean War, when a thin
line of Scottish Highlander infantry, assisted
by Royal Marines and Turkish infantrymen,
repulsed a Russian cavalry charge.
It was widely reported in the British press
as an example of courage in the face of overwhelming
odds and became a British military legend.
In the 19th-century novel The Red Badge of
Courage by Stephen Crane, a story about the
American Civil War, the red badge was the
blood from a wound, by which a soldier could
prove his courage.
=== Courtly love, the red rose, and Saint
Valentine's Day ===
Red is the color most commonly associated
with love, followed at a great distance by
pink.
It the symbolic color of the heart and the
red rose, is closely associated with romantic
love or courtly love and Saint Valentine's
Day.
Both the Greeks and the Hebrews considered
red a symbol of love as well as sacrifice.The
Roman de la Rose, the Romance of the Rose,
a thirteenth-century French poem, was one
of the most popular works of literature of
the Middle Ages.
It was the allegorical search by the author
for a red rose in an enclosed garden, symbolizing
the woman he loved, and was a description
of love in all of its aspects.
Later, in the 19th century, British and French
authors described a specific language of flowers
– giving a single red rose meant 'I love
you'.Saint Valentine, a Roman Catholic Bishop
or priest who was martyred in about 296 AD,
seems to have had no known connection with
romantic love, but the day of his martyrdom
on the Roman Catholic calendar, Saint Valentine's
Day (February 14), became, in the 14th century,
an occasion for lovers to send messages to
each other.
In recent years the celebration of Saint Valentine'
s day has spread beyond Christian countries
to Japan and China and other parts of the
world.
The celebration of Saint Valentine's Day is
forbidden or strongly condemned in many Islamic
countries, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan
and Iran.
In Saudi Arabia, in 2002 and 2011, religious
police banned the sale of all Valentine's
Day items, telling shop workers to remove
any red items, as the day is considered a
Christian holiday.
=== Happiness, celebration and ceremony ===
Red is the color most commonly associated
with joy and well being.
It is the color of celebration and ceremony.
A red carpet is often used to welcome distinguished
guests.
Red is also the traditional color of seats
in opera houses and theaters.
Scarlet academic gowns are worn by new Doctors
of Philosophy at degree ceremonies at Oxford
University and other schools.
In China, it is considered the color of good
fortune and prosperity, and it is the color
traditionally worn by brides.
In Christian countries, it is the color traditionally
worn at Christmas by Santa Claus, because
in the 4th century the historic Saint Nicholas
was the Greek Christian Bishop of Myra, in
modern-day Turkey, and bishops then dressed
in red.
=== Hatred, anger, aggression, passion, heat
and war ===
While red is the color most associated with
love, it also the color most frequently associated
with hatred, anger, aggression and war.
People who are angry are said to "see red."
Red is the color most commonly associated
with passion and heat.
In ancient Rome, red was the color of Mars,
the god of war—the planet Mars was named
for him because of its red color.
=== Warning and danger ===
Red is the traditional color of warning and
danger.
In the Middle Ages, a red flag announced that
the defenders of a town or castle would fight
to defend it, and a red flag hoisted by a
warship meant they would show no mercy to
their enemy.
In Britain, in the early days of motoring,
motor cars had to follow a man with a red
flag who would warn horse-drawn vehicles,
before the Locomotives on Highways Act 1896
abolished this law.
In automobile races, the red flag is raised
if there is danger to the drivers.
In international football, a player who has
made a serious violation of the rules is shown
a red penalty card and ejected from the game.Several
studies have indicated that red carries the
strongest reaction of all the colors, with
the level of reaction decreasing gradually
with the colors orange, yellow, and white,
respectively.
For this reason, red is generally used as
the highest level of warning, such as threat
level of terrorist attack in the United States.
In fact, teachers at a primary school in the
UK have been told not to mark children's work
in red ink because it encourages a "negative
approach".Red is the international color of
stop signs and stop lights on highways and
intersections.
It was standardized as the international color
at the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and
Signals of 1968.
It was chosen partly because red is the brightest
color in daytime (next to orange), though
it is less visible at twilight, when green
is the most visible color.
Red also stands out more clearly against a
cool natural backdrop of blue sky, green trees
or gray buildings.
But it was mostly chosen as the color for
stoplights and stop signs because of its universal
association with danger and warning.
The 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Signs and
Signals of 1968 uses red color also for the
margin of danger warning sign, give way signs
and prohibitory signs, following the previous
German-type signage (established by Verordnung
über Warnungstafeln für den Kraftfahrzeugverkehr
in 1927).
=== The color that attracts attention ===
Red is the color that most attracts attention.
Surveys show it is the color most frequently
associated with visibility, proximity, and
extroverts.
It is also the color most associated with
dynamism and activity.Red is used in modern
fashion much as it was used in Medieval painting;
to attract the eyes of the viewer to the person
who is supposed to be the center of attention.
People wearing red seem to be closer than
those dressed in other colors, even if they
are actually the same distance away.
Monarchs, wives of presidential candidates
and other celebrities often wear red to be
visible from a distance in a crowd.
It is also commonly worn by lifeguards and
others whose job requires them to be easily
found.Because red attracts attention, it is
frequently used in advertising, though studies
show that people are less likely to read something
printed in red because they know it is advertising,
and because it is more difficult visually
to read than black and white text.
=== Seduction, sexuality and sin ===
Red by a large margin is the color most commonly
associated with seduction, sexuality, eroticism
and immorality, possibly because of its close
connection with passion and with danger.Red
was long seen as having a dark side, particularly
in Christian theology.
It was associated with sexual passion, anger,
sin, and the devil.
In the Old Testament of the Bible, the Book
of Isaiah said: "Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be white as snow."
In the New Testament, in the Book of Revelation,
the Antichrist appears as a red monster, ridden
by a woman dressed in scarlet, known as the
Whore of Babylon:
"So he carried me away in the spirit into
the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon
a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of
blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.
"And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet
colour, and decked with gold and precious
stones and pearls, having a golden cup in
her hand full of abominations and filthiness
of her fornication:
"And upon her forehead was a name written
a mystery: Babylon the Great, the Mother of
Harlots and of all the abominations of the
earth:
And I saw the woman drunken with the blood
of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs
of Jesus.Satan is often depicted as colored
red and/or wearing a red costume in both iconography
and popular culture.
By the 20th century, the devil in red had
become a folk character in legends and stories.
In 1915, Irving Berlin wrote a song, At the
Devil's Ball, and the devil in red appeared
more often in cartoons and movies than in
religious art.
In 17th-century New England, red was associated
with adultery.
In the 1850 novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne,
The Scarlet Letter, set in a Puritan New England
community, a woman is punished for adultery
with ostracism, her sin represented by a red
letter 'A' sewn onto her clothes.Red is still
commonly associated with prostitution.
Prostitutes in many cities were required to
wear red to announce their profession, and
houses of prostitution displayed a red light.
Beginning in the early 20th century, houses
of prostitution were allowed only in certain
specified neighborhoods, which became known
as red-light districts.
Large red-light districts are found today
in Bangkok and Amsterdam.
In Roman Catholicism, red represents wrath,
one of the seven deadly sins.
In both Christian and Hebrew tradition, red
is also sometimes associated with murder or
guilt, with "having blood on one's hands",
or "being caught red-handed.
== In different cultures and traditions ==
In China, red (simplified Chinese: 红; traditional
Chinese: 紅; pinyin: hóng) is the symbol
of fire and the south (both south in general
and Southern China specifically).
It carries a largely positive connotation,
being associated with courage, loyalty, honor,
success, fortune, fertility, happiness, passion,
and summer.
In Chinese cultural traditions, red is associated
with weddings (where brides traditionally
wear red dresses) and red paper is frequently
used to wrap gifts of money or other objects.
Special red packets (simplified Chinese: 红包;
traditional Chinese: 紅包; pinyin: hóng
bāo in Mandarin or lai see in Cantonese)
are specifically used during Chinese New Year
celebrations for giving monetary gifts.
On the more negative side, obituaries are
traditionally written in red ink, and to write
someone's name in red signals either cutting
them out of one's life, or that they have
died.
Red is also associated with either the feminine
or the masculine (yin and yang respectively),
depending on the source.
The Little Red Book, a collection of quotations
from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, founding father
of the People's Republic of China (PRC), was
published in 1966 and widely distributed thereafter.
In Japan, red is a traditional color for a
heroic figure.
In the Indian subcontinent, red is the traditional
color of bridal dresses, and is frequently
represented in the media as a symbolic color
for married women.
The color is associated with purity, as well
as with sexuality in marital relationships
through its connection to heat and fertility.
It is also the color of wealth, beauty, and
the goddess Lakshmi.In Central Africa, Ndembu
warriors rub themselves with red paint during
celebrations.
Since their culture sees the color as a symbol
of life and health, sick people are also painted
with it.
Like most Central African cultures, the Ndembu
see red as ambivalent, better than black but
not as good as white.
In other parts of Africa, however, red is
a color of mourning, representing death.
Because red bears are associated with death
in many parts of Africa, the Red Cross has
changed its colors to green and white in parts
of the continent.The early Ottoman Turks led
by the first Ottoman Sultan, Osman I, carried
red banners symbolizing sovereignty, Ghazis
and Sufism, until, according to legend, he
saw a new red flag in his dream inlaid with
a crescent.
In Russian culture the color red plays a significant
role since days of Old Russia.
It is so significant in the Russian folk culture
and history that in ancient Russian language
the words for beautiful and red (Russian:
Красны, Krasny) were completely identical.
But even in the modern Russian language, the
terms for red and beautiful are strongly connected
linguistically and are omnipresent in everyday
usage.
The color is perceived in Russia as the color
of beauty, good and something honorable.
Krasny (Russian: Красны) means red and
krasivyy (Russian:красивый) means
beautiful in modern Russian.
The word for a beautiful girl or a beautiful
woman in modern Russian language is krasávica
(Russian: красавица), while a beautiful
or good guy is called krasávčik (Russian:
краса́вчик).
To describe a lovely girl or a woman the word
prekrasnaya (Russian: прекрасная)
is used and prekrasnyy (Russian: прекрасный)
is used for guys.
Many places in Russia are also associated
with the color red, like for example the Red
Square or the city Krasnodar.
Red is a predominant color on Russian folk
costumes like the Sarafan and handicrafts
like the Rushnyk and Khokhloma.
Red roses appear on women's folk costumes,
on men's hats during folk dances and on traditional
Russian shawls.
Red berries like the Viburnum opulus are an
important component of Russian folk culture
which occur in many Russian folk songs, while
Kalinka is the most famous of them.
Also, Easter eggs in Russia are often colored
in red and the color plays a big role in the
Russian Orthodox Church, like for example
on the Russian icons.
In Russia the word color, to paint or to dye
means krásitʹ (Russian: кра́сить)
which is also connected to red (Krasny, Krasna,
Russian: Красны, кра́сна).
=== Wedding dresses ===
In many Asian countries, red is the traditional
color for a wedding dress today, symbolizing
joy and good fortune.
In India, brides traditionally wear a red
sari, called the sari of blood, offered by
their father, signifying that his duties as
a father are transferred to the new husband,
and as a symbol of his wish for her to have
children.
Once married, the bride will wear a sari with
a red border, changing it to a white sari
if her husband dies.
In Pakistan and India, some brides traditionally
also have their hands and feet painted red
with henna by the family of their new spouse,
to bring happiness and signify their new status.
== In religion ==
In Christianity, red is associated with the
blood of Christ and the sacrifice of martyrs.
In the Roman Catholic Church it is also associated
with pentecost and the Holy Spirit.
Since 1295, it is the color worn by Cardinals,
the senior clergy of the Roman Catholic Church.
Red is the liturgical color for the feasts
of martyrs, representing the blood of those
who suffered death for their faith.
It is sometimes used as the liturgical color
for Holy Week, including Palm Sunday and Good
Friday, although this is a modern (20th-century)
development.
In Catholic practice, it is also the liturgical
color used to commemorate the Holy Spirit
(for this reason it is worn at Pentecost and
during Confirmation masses).
Because of its association with martyrdom
and the Spirit, it is also the color used
to commemorate the Apostles (except for the
Apostle St. John, who was not martyred, where
white is used), and as such, it is used to
commemorate bishops, who are the successors
of the Apostles (for this reason, when funeral
masses are held for bishops, cardinals, or
popes, red is used instead of the white that
would ordinarily be used).
In Buddhism, red is one of the five colors
which are said to have emanated from the Buddha
when he attained enlightenment, or nirvana.
It is particularly associated with the benefits
of the practice of Buddhism; achievement,
wisdom, virtue, fortune and dignity.
It was also believed to have the power to
resist evil.
In China red was commonly used for the walls,
pillars, and gates of temples.
In the Shinto religion of Japan, the gateways
of temples, called torii, are traditionally
painted vermilion red and black.
The torii symbolizes the passage from the
profane world to a sacred place.
The bridges in the gardens of Japanese temples
are also painted red (and usually only temple
bridges are red, not bridges in ordinary gardens),
since they are also passages to sacred places.
Red was also considered a color which could
expel evil and disease.
== Military uses ==
NATO Military Symbols for Land Based Systems
uses red to denote hostile forces, hence the
terms "red team" and "Red Cell" to denote
challengers during exercises.
=== The red uniform ===
The red military uniform was adopted by the
English Parliament's New Model Army in 1645,
and was still worn as a dress uniform by the
British Army until the outbreak of the First
World War in August 1914.
Ordinary soldiers wore red coats dyed with
madder, while officers wore scarlet coats
dyed with the more expensive cochineal.
This led to British soldiers being known as
red coats.
In the modern British army, scarlet is still
worn by the Foot Guards, the Life Guards,
and by some regimental bands or drummers for
ceremonial purposes.
Officers and NCOs of those regiments which
previously wore red retain scarlet as the
color of their "mess" or formal evening jackets.
The Royal Gibraltar Regiment has a scarlet
tunic in its winter dress.
Scarlet is worn for some full dress, military
band or mess uniforms in the modern armies
of a number of the countries that made up
the former British Empire.
These include the Australian, Jamaican, New
Zealand, Fijian, Canadian, Kenyan, Ghanaian,
Indian, Singaporean, Sri Lankan and Pakistani
armies.The musicians of the United States
Marine Corps Band wear red, following an 18th-century
military tradition that the uniforms of band
members are the reverse of the uniforms of
the other soldiers in their unit.
Since the US Marine uniform is blue with red
facings, the band wears the reverse.
Red Serge is the uniform of the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police, created in 1873 as the North-West
Mounted Police, and given its present name
in 1920.
The uniform was adapted from the tunic of
the British Army.
Cadets at the Royal Military College of Canada
also wear red dress uniforms.
The Brazilian Marine Corps wears a red dress
uniform.
== In sports ==
The first known team sport to feature red
uniforms was chariot racing during the late
Roman Empire.
The earliest races were between two chariots,
one driver wearing red, the other white.
Later, the number of teams was increased to
four, including drivers in light green and
sky blue.
Twenty-five races were run in a day, with
a total of one hundred chariots participating.Today
many sports teams throughout the world feature
red on their uniforms.
Along with blue, red is the most commonly
used non-white color in sports.
Numerous national sports teams wear red, often
through association with their national flags.
A few of these teams feature the color as
part of their nickname such as Spain (with
their association football (soccer) national
team nicknamed La Furia Roja or "The Red Fury")
and Belgium (whose football team bears the
nickname Rode Duivels or "Red Devils").
In club association football (soccer), red
is a commonly used color throughout the world.
A number of teams' nicknames feature the color.
A red penalty card is issued to a player who
commits a serious infraction: the player is
immediately disqualified from further play
and his team must continue with one less player
for the game's duration.
In rugby union, Ireland's Munster rugby, New
Zealand's Canterbury provincial team and the
Crusaders Super 14 rugby side wear red as
a major color in their playing strips.
Rosso Corsa is the red international motor
racing color of cars entered by teams from
Italy.
Since the 1920s Italian race cars of Alfa
Romeo, Maserati, Lancia, and later Ferrari
and Abarth have been painted with a color
known as rosso corsa ("racing red").
National colors were mostly replaced in Formula
One by commercial sponsor liveries in 1968,
but unlike most other teams, Ferrari always
kept the traditional red, although the shade
of the color varies.
The color is commonly used for professional
sports teams in Canada and the United States
with eleven Major League Baseball teams, eleven
National Hockey League teams, seven National
Football League teams and eleven National
Basketball Association teams prominently featuring
some shade of the color.
The color is also featured in the league logos
of Major League Baseball, the National Football
League and the National Basketball Association.
In the National Football League, a red flag
is thrown by the head coach to challenge a
referee's decision during the game.
During the 1950s when red was strongly associated
with communism in the United States, the modern
Cincinnati Reds team was known as the "Redlegs"
and the term was used on baseball cards.
After the red scare faded, the team was known
as the "Reds" again.In boxing, red is often
the color used on a fighter's gloves.
George Foreman wore the same red trunks he
used during his loss to Muhammad Ali when
he defeated Michael Moorer 20 years later
to regain the title he lost.
Boxers named or nicknamed "red" include Red
Burman, Ernie "Red" Lopez, and his brother
Danny "Little Red" Lopez.
== On flags ==
Red is one of the most common colors used
on national flags.
The use of red has similar connotations from
country to country: the blood, sacrifice,
and courage of those who defended their country;
the sun and the hope and warmth it brings;
and the sacrifice of Christ's blood (in some
historically Christian nations) are a few
examples.
Red is the color of the flags of several countries
that once belonged to the British Empire.
The British flag bears the colors red, white
and blue; it includes the cross of Saint George,
patron saint of England, and the saltire of
Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, both
of which are red on white.
The flag of the United States bears the colors
of Britain, the colors of the French tricolore
include red as part of the old Paris coat
of arms, and other countries' flags, such
as those of Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji,
carry a small inset of the British flag in
memory of their ties to that country.
Many former colonies of Spain, such as Mexico,
Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Panama,
Peru, Puerto Rico and Venezuela, also feature
red-one of the colors of the Spanish flag-on
their own banners.
Red flags are also used to symbolize storms,
bad water conditions, and many other dangers.
Navy flags are often red and yellow.
Red is prominently featured in the flag of
the United States Marine Corps.
The red on the flag of Nepal represents the
floral emblem of the country, the rhododendron.
Red, blue, and white are also the Pan-Slavic
colors adopted by the Slavic solidarity movement
of the late nineteenth century.
Initially these were the colors of the Russian
flag; as the Slavic movement grew, they were
adopted by other Slavic peoples including
Slovaks, Slovenes, and Serbs.
The flags of the Czech Republic and Poland
use red for historic heraldic reasons (see
Coat of arms of Poland and Coat of arms of
the Czech Republic) & not due to Pan-Slavic
connotations.
In 2004 Georgia adopted a new white flag,
which consists of four small and one big red
cross in the middle touching all four sides.
Red, white, and black were the colors of the
German Empire from 1870 to 1918, and as such
they came to be associated with German nationalism.
In the 1920s they were adopted as the colors
of the Nazi flag.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained that they
were "revered colors expressive of our homage
to the glorious past."
The red part of the flag was also chosen to
attract attention – Hitler wrote: "the new
flag ... should prove effective as a large
poster" because "in hundreds of thousands
of cases a really striking emblem may be the
first cause of awakening interest in a movement."
The red also symbolized the social program
of the Nazis, aimed at German workers.
Several designs by a number of different authors
were considered, but the one adopted in the
end was Hitler's personal design.Red, white,
green and black are the colors of Pan-Arabism
and are used by many Arab countries.Red, gold,
green, and black are the colors of Pan-Africanism.
Several African countries thus use the color
on their flags, including South Africa, Ghana,
Senegal, Mali, Ethiopia, Togo, Guinea, Benin,
and Zimbabwe.
The Pan-African colors are borrowed from the
flag of Ethiopia, one of the oldest independent
African countries.
Rwanda, notably, removed red from its flag
after the Rwandan Genocide because of red's
association with blood.The flags of Japan
and Bangladesh both have a red circle in the
middle of different colored backgrounds.
The flag of the Philippines has a red trapezoid
on the bottom signifying blood, courage, and
valor (also, if the flag is inverted so that
the red trapezoid is on top and the blue at
the bottom, it indicates a state of war).
The flag of Singapore has a red rectangle
on the top.
The field of the flag of Portugal is green
and red.
The Ottoman Empire adopted several different
red flags during the six centuries of its
rule, with the successor Republic of Turkey
continuing the 1844 Ottoman Flag.
== Red flag and revolution ==
In the Middle Ages, ships in combat hoisted
a long red streamer, called the Baucans, to
signify a fight to the death.
In the 17th century, a red flag signalled
defiance.
A besieged castle or city would raise a red
flag to tell the attackers that they would
not surrender.The red flag appeared as a political
symbol during the French Revolution, after
the fall of Bastille.
A law adopted by the new government on October
20, 1789 authorized the Garde Nationale to
raise the red flag in the event of a riot,
to signal that the Garde would imminently
intervene.
During a demonstration on the Champs de Mars
on July 17, 1791, the Garde Nationale fired
on the crowd, killed up to fifty people.
The government was denounced by the more radical
revolutionaries.
In the words of his famous hymn, the Marseillaise,
Rouget de Lisle wrote: "Against us they have
raised the bloody flag of tyranny!"
(Contre nous de la tyrannie, l'entendard sanglant
est leve).
Beginning in 1790, the most radical revolutionaries
adopted the red flag themselves, to symbolize
the blood of those killed in the demonstrations,
and to call for the repression of those they
considered counter-revolutionary.During the
French Revolution, many in the Paris crowds
also wore a red phrygian cap, a symbol of
liberty, modeled after the caps worn in ancient
Rome by freed slaves; but the colors of the
Revolution finally became blue, white and
red.
The red in the French flag was taken from
the emblem of the city of Paris, where it
represented the city's patron saint, Saint
Denis.
Karl Marx published the Communist Manifesto
in February 1848, with little attention.
However, a few days later the French Revolution
of 1848 broke out, which replaced the monarchy
of Louis Philippe with the Second French Republic.
In June 1848, Paris workers, disenchanted
with the new government, built barricades
and raised red flags.
The new government called in the French Army
to put down the uprising, the first of many
such confrontations between the army and the
new worker's movements in Europe.
Red was also the color of the movement to
unify Italy, led by Giuseppe Garibaldi.
His followers were known as the camicie rosse,
or (redshirts) during the fight for Italian
Risorgimento in 1860.
In 1870, following the stunning defeat of
the French Army by the Germans in the Franco-Prussian
War, French workers and socialist revolutionaries
seized Paris and created the Paris Commune.
The Commune lasted for two months before it
was crushed by the French Army, with much
bloodshed.
The original red banners of the Commune became
icons of the socialist revolution; in 1921
members of the French Communist Party came
to Moscow and presented the new Soviet government
with one of the original Commune banners;
it was placed (and is still in place) in the
tomb of Vladimir Lenin, next to his open coffin.With
the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Russian
Revolution of 1917, the red flag, with a hammer
to symbolize the workers and sickle to symbolize
peasants, became the official flag of Russia,
and, in 1923, of the Soviet Union.
It remained so until the breakup of the Soviet
Union in 1991.
After the Communist Party of China took power
in 1949, the flag of China became a red flag
with a large star symbolizing the Communist
Party, and smaller stars symbolizing workers,
peasants, the urban middle class and rural
middle class.
The flag of the Communist Party of China became
a red banner with a hammer and sickle, similar
to that on the Soviet flag.
In the 1950s and 1960s, other Communist regimes
such as Vietnam and Laos also adopted red
flags.
Some Communist countries, such as Cuba, chose
to keep their old flags; and other countries
used red flags which had nothing to do with
Communism or socialism; the red flag of Nepal,
for instance, represents the national flower.
== Use by political movements ==
In 18th-century Europe, red was usually associated
with the monarchy and with those in power.
The Pope wore red, as did the Swiss Guards
of the Kings of France, the soldiers of the
British Army and the Danish Army.
The French Revolution saw red used by the
Jacobins as a symbol of the martyrs of the
Revolution.
In the nineteenth century, with the Industrial
Revolution and the rise of worker's movements,
it became the color of socialism (especially
the Marxist variant), and, with the Paris
Commune of 1870, of revolution.
In the 20th century, red was the color first
of the Russian Bolsheviks and then, after
the success of the Russian Revolution of 1917,
of Communist Parties around the world.
Red also became the color of many social democratic
parties in Europe, including the Labour Party
in Britain (founded 1900); the Social Democratic
Party of Germany (whose roots went back to
1863) and the French Socialist Party, which
dated back under different names, to 1879.
The Socialist Party of America (1901–72)
and the Communist Party USA (1919) both also
chose red as their color.
Members of the Christian-Social People's Party
in Liechtenstein (founded 1918) advocated
an expansion of democracy and progressive
social policies, and were often referred to
disparagingly as "Reds" for their social liberal
leanings and party colors.The Communist Party
of China, founded in 1920, adopted the red
flag and hammer and sickle emblem of the Soviet
Union, which became the national symbols when
the Party took power in China in 1949.
Under Party leader Mao Zedong, the Party anthem
became "The East Is Red", and Mao Zedong himself
was sometimes referred to as a "red sun".
During the Cultural Revolution in China, Party
ideology was enforced by the Red Guards, and
the sayings of Mao Zedong were published as
a small red book in hundreds of millions of
copies.
Today the Communist Party of China claims
to be the largest political party in the world,
with eighty million members.Beginning in the
1960s and the 1970s, paramilitary extremist
groups such as the Red Army Faction in Germany,
the Japanese Red Army and the Shining Path
Maoist movement in Peru used red as their
color.
But in the 1980s, some European socialist
and social democratic parties, such as the
Labour Party in Britain and the Socialist
Party in France, moved away from the symbolism
of the far left, keeping the red color but
changing their symbol to a less-threatening
red rose.
Red is used around the world by political
parties of the left or center-left.
In the United States, it is the color of the
Communist Party USA, of the Social Democrats,
USA, and in Puerto Rico, of the Popular Democratic
Party of Puerto Rico.
In the United States, political commentators
often refer to the "red states", which traditionally
vote for Republican candidates in presidential
elections, and "blue states", which vote for
the Democratic candidate.
This convention is relatively recent: before
the 2000 presidential election, media outlets
assigned red and blue to both parties, sometimes
alternating the allocation for each election.
Fixed usage was established during the 39-day
recount following the 2000 election, when
the media began to discuss the contest in
terms of "red states" versus "blue states".
== Social and special interest groups ==
Such names as Red Club (a bar), Red Carpet
(a discothèque) or Red Cottbus and Club Red
(event locations) suggest liveliness and excitement.
The Red Hat Society is a social group founded
in 1998 for women 50 and over.
Use of the color red to call attention to
an emergency situation is evident in the names
of such organizations as the Red Cross (humanitarian
aid), Red Hot Organization (AIDS support),
and the Red List of Threatened Species (of
IUCN).
In reference to humans, term "red" is often
used in the West to describe the indigenous
peoples of the Americas.
== Idioms ==
Many idiomatic expressions exploit the various
connotations of red:
Expressing emotion"to see red" (to be angry
or aggressive)
"to have red ears / a red face" (to be embarrassed)
"to paint the town red" (to have an enjoyable
evening, usually with a generous amount of
eating, drinking, dancing)Giving warning"to
raise a red flag" (to signal that something
is problematic)
"like a red rag to a bull" (to cause someone
to be enraged)
"to be in the red" (to be losing money, from
the accounting habit of writing deficits and
losses in red ink)Calling attention"a red
letter day" (a special or important event,
from the medieval custom of printing the dates
of saints' days and holy days in red ink.)
"to print in red ink" (for emphasis or easy
identification)
"to lay out the red carpet" or "give red-carpet
treatment" (to treat someone royally as a
very special person)
"to catch someone red-handed" (in the act
of doing something wrong, such with blood
on his hands after a murder or poaching game)Other
idioms"to tie up in red tape".
In England red tape was used by lawyers and
government officials to identify important
documents.
It became a term for excessive bureaucratic
regulation.
It was popularized in the 19th century by
the writer Thomas Carlyle, who complained
about "red-tapism".
"red herring."
A false clue that leads investigators off
the track.
Refers to the practice of using a fragrant
smoked fish to distract hunting or tracking
dogs from the track they are meant to follow.
== Superstition ==
It is a common belief in the United States
that red cars are stopped for speeding more
often than other color cars.
However, there is no statistical evidence
that this is true.
Many police departments have denied it, saying
their officers stop drivers for their behavior,
not the color of their cars.
The one survey that was made on this subject
in 1990 by a St. Petersburg, Florida newspaper
showed that the number of speeding tickets
given to drivers of red cars was about the
same as the proportion of red cars on the
road in the community.
== See also ==
Erythrophobia
List of colors
Little Red Riding Hood
