Crimson, the Deep Red of the Insect Dye

Crimson is a strong, slightly blue-shifted red, and its name and history are bound up with a dye made from insects. The word descends through Old Spanish and Arabic from the Sanskrit for the kermes insect, whose dried bodies yielded a rich red used across the ancient Mediterranean; later the New World cochineal insect gave an even stronger crimson that became one of the most valuable exports of colonial Spanish America.

Because a fast, deep red was costly, crimson carried associations of wealth, rank and ceremony, used for robes of state and of high office. It shares the general symbolism of red, blood, life, passion, sacrifice, intensified toward the sombre and the regal by its depth. In Christian usage rich reds mark martyrdom and the blood of Christ. As a distinct shade crimson signals a red that is serious rather than bright, ceremonial rather than alarming, and its very name is a reminder of how much colour history is really the history of the substances that produced it.