Saturnine Zǐlán
Saturnine Zǐlán (#312883) is a deep blue with an earthy character. It leans grounded and natural, the kind of color that plays well with wood, clay, linen, and warm neutrals. Its HSL profile (246°, 53%, 34%) places it in the balanced band at a dark lightness. It works well as a headline, icon, or deep background in an otherwise light layout, pairing cleanly with cream, bone, and warm neutrals. For a confident two-color system, pair it with its complementary yellow. For something softer, pull in its analogous neighbors on either side of the wheel.
Etymology
Latin Sāturnīnus, of Saturn — referring to the gloomy temperament associated with the planet Saturn in classical-and-Renaissance astrology. As a color modifier, saturnine implies a deep-and-cool-and-gloomy quality, the dark cool-gray of Hellebore-and-Lead alchemical-melancholic associations. Sits at the deep-and-cool end of the grid, parallel to sullen and gloomy.
Chinese 紫蓝, purple-blue — the deep indigo-violet of late-imperial Qing court silks dyed with cultivated Polygonum tinctorium. Zǐlán color refers to a Qing-period imperial silk court robe: a saturated, slightly cool deep blue-violet with the silk luster of multi-bath fermentation indigo on tussah silk. Distinct in Chinese color terminology from zǐ (purple) and lán (blue).
Closest matches
The nearest named color in three reference sources, ranked by perceptual distance (ΔE76 in CIELAB). ΔE < 1 is imperceptible to most viewers; ΔE > 10 is clearly different. When two sources point to the same hex they’re merged into one tile; click any to open that color’s page.
Variations
Click any swatch to exploreHarmonies
Accessibility
How this color appears to viewers with the four major color-vision-deficiency types. Computed via the Machado (2009) physiologically-based model. If a tile matches the original, the color reads the same to that viewer.
The color used as foreground text against pure white and pure black, with the contrast ratio and WCAG 2.1 grade. Aim for AA (4.5:1) for body text and AA Large (3:1) for 18 pt+ headlines; AAA (7:1) is the gold standard for long-form reading surfaces.