* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia
I have prepared this artistic photographic report for The Photos of the Readers of La Vanguardia because magenta seemed to me to be a very current color with so many wars and tragedies that we have today, such as in Ukraine and Gaza.
Magenta is beautiful, but with a bloody past and origin. I have portrayed some roses interpreted with reflections of this tone, a symbol of beauty and tragedy at the same time.
In 1859, France and Austria declared war on each other. And a decisive battle was fought in Magenta, a small Lombard-Venetian town in Italy that ended up giving its name to this color.
54,000 French fought against 58,000 Austrians. Although there were fewer of them, the French were smarter and ended up prevailing. In total, nearly 4,000 dead and wounded were recorded on the French side and another 5,700 in the Austrian army.
There was so much blood spilled on the battlefield that it was decided to name the dye Triaminotriphenylcarboniumchloride, which had been chemically developed since 1856, with the name "magenta".
This dye was very fashionable in 1860, when the French renamed the color fuchsine magenta, in reference to the blood spilled in that battle. Therefore, a reminder of the horror of war to remind us of the need to preserve peace.
Fuchsine was discovered by August Wilhelm von Hofmann and François-Emmanuel Verguin and marketed for the first time by the firm Renard frères et Franc, of Lyon.
Magenta has a color similar to fuchsia. It is an important color within the color circles, fulfilling the role of both a subtractive primary color and an additive secondary color.
The colors for artistic painting under the chromatic name of magenta are usually made with quinacridones, magenta dyes developed in the 1930s. In this way, through art, it is a color that emerged from war but that can be used to paint peace .
