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Ochre
Color coordinates
Hex triplet	#CC7722
sRGB (r, g, b)	(204, 119, 34)
HSV (h, s, v)	(30°, 83%, 80%)
CIELChuv (L, C, h)	(58, 87, 37°)
Source
B: Normalized to (byte)

Ochre or Ocher (Template:Pron-en OH-kər, from the Greek ὠχρός, yellow) is a color, usually described as golden-yellow or light yellow brown.

Pigment

As a painting pigment, it exists in at least four forms:

• Yellow ochre, Fe₂O₃ • H₂O, a hydrated iron oxide
• Red ochre, Fe₂O₃, the anhydrate of yellow ochre, which turns red when heated, as this drives off the water ligands.
• Purple ochre, identical to red ochre chemically but of a different hue caused by different light diffraction properties associated with a greater average particle size
• Brown ochre (Goethite), also partly hydrated iron oxide (rust)

For further information, see the articles on the individual ochres. They are found throughout the world in many shades. Many sources consider the best brown ochre to come from Cyprus, and the best yellow and red ochre from Roussillon, France. All have been used since prehistoric times, and are among the oldest pigments used.

The color ochre in human culture

Fishing industry

• When the mineral was found in Brixham England, it became a very important part of the developing fishing industry. This gave the old fishing boats their "Red Sails in the Sunset", but the purpose was to protect the canvas from seawater, not to be picturesque. It was boiled in great caldrons, together with tar, tallow and oak bark, the last ingredient giving the name of barking yards to the places where the hot mixture was painted on to the sails, which were then hung up to dry.

Human evolution

• Adam (from the hebrew adamá or red earth; adom, red, dam or blood was created out of red clay . In the prehistoric cultures the red ochre was associated with the worship of the Mother Earth or the Goddess who provided the neolithic peoples with fertility, birth, nature, fruits. The female blood is thus associated with red ochre. The so called venus figurines typified this art and religion .

• The earliest unequivocal evidence for complex human culture comes from the site of Blombos Cave in South Africa, where two pieces of ochre engraved with abstract designs have been found, often considered to be the world's first known art, along with shells pierced for use as jewelry and a complex toolkit including finely crafted bone tools. The ensemble is dated to around 75,000 years ago. It is widely supposed that the presence of complex culture indicates the use of modern human language.

• Ochre pigments were used by the Cro-Magnon artists who painted the pre-historic cave paintings in southern Europe betweem 32,000 and 10,000 years ago.

See also

• Clay earth pigment
• List of colors

External links

• Pigments through the ages
  • Red Ochre
  • Yellow ochre
  • Brown ochre

References

1. Absolute Astronomy, Red Ochre
2. Pigments through the ages
3. Abarim Publications, Adam
4. TripAtlas, Red Ochre
5. Pigments through the ages
6. Edgar, Blake. 2008 "Letter from South Africa." Archaeology 61.2, March-April 2008.
7. Cartage, PreHistory

• Fuller, Carl; Natural Colored Iron Oxide Pigments, pp. 281–6. In: Pigment Handbook, 2nd Edition. Lewis, P. (ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1988.
• Thomas, Anne Wall. Colors From the Earth, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1980.

• Shades of brown
• Iron oxide pigments