Confident Catnip Ultramarine

A late-Latin participle, confidens, trusting — borrowed into English in the sixteenth century. As a color modifier, confident implies saturation combined with poise: a confident red doesn't try too hard, just sits at the level of its hue without overreaching. Sits in the bold-bucket center near bold and resolute.

Old English catte-nepe, cat-mint-or-catnip. As a color modifier, catnip implies a cat-mint-and-grey-green-cottage-herb quality, the visual register of English-cottage-and-Quaker-herb-garden-catnip hand-cat-mint-and-grey-green-cottage-herb English-cottage-and-Quaker-herb-garden-catnip-and-Tudor-still-room catnip-and-cat-mint surfaces under English-cottage-and-Quaker-herb-garden-catnip-and-Tudor-still-room Sussex-cottage-and-New-England-Quaker-garden cottage-herb-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to hyssop and lovage in usage.

The pigment ground from lapis lazuli — the Afghan mineral imported through Venice in the late Middle Ages, more expensive by weight than gold during the Renaissance. The color refers to a freshly mixed ultramarine pigment in linseed oil: a saturated, slightly violet-shifted deep blue with the matte finish of micron-ground rock. Deeper than cobalt, cooler than royal, with the art-historical weight of the blue Vermeer reserved for Mary's robe.