Rosa 'Ebb Tide' & Gerbera 'Sweet Fiesta' 22 August 2022

“Al llegar al corazón el tiempo no puede ya medirse, y en la infinita rosa violeta del centro el cronopio encuentra un gran contento...”

― Julio Cortázar, Historias de cronopios y de famas – Julio Cortázar

The range of colour violet has a wavelength that ranges from 380 nm to 450 nm. Purple is an unnatural mixture of red and blue that leads to its creation. Violet on the other can be produced with the help of a prism when white light passes through it causing it to split into colours.

I remember very well where I was and what I was doing on September 26, 1960. I was in Austin, Texas at the St. Edward’s Roman Catholic boarding school. Because I was an upperclassman I had the right to be in the exclusive pool room for those in grade 11 and grade 12. I was not playing pool. I was glued to a TV debate.

Nixon refused make-up for the first debate, subsequently his facial stubble showed prominently on the black-and-white television screens at the time. During the debate, Nixon started sweating under the studio lights. His light gray suit faded into the backdrop of the set and seemed to match his skin tone. Reacting to this, his mother immediately called him to and asked whether he was sick.

Much later in the early 70s I figured out that photography film (and also video cameras and now digital ones) had a bias towards UV light and I started using UV filters. By then I knew that Nixon had refused to wear Max Factor pancake makeup. This concoction, invented by Max Factor (Maksymilian Faktorowicz),  which combined sun block, lanoline, perfume and a pink colorant.

And by then I had discovered that Kodak B+W Infrared Film being sensitive to red it was not so on the opposite side of the spectrum of violet and UV and it made faces look flawless and blemishes and freckles disappear. But your subject had to wear purple lipstick (not violet?) or their mouths would look like whitish like that of a dead person.

So I have a particular liking not only for red roses but to red roses that age to violet, and of violet roses, too.

There is a beautiful word in Spanish  (no real translation) that is lovely to the ear. Something that is of the colour violet is violáceo. The word comes from Latin -violaceus.