Bold Luna Ruby

Old English beald, brave, courageous — a quality word that crossed over to color in the late seventeenth century. Bold describes a color that asserts itself: high saturation combined with mid lightness, where the hue presents itself without compromise. Sits at the center of the bold-bucket grid, near strong and rich. Closer to a presence word than a pigment word.

Latin luna, moon. As a color modifier, luna implies a moonlit-and-silver-and-pale-night quality, the visual register of full-moon-and-Selene-Diana-Luna hand-moonlit-and-silver-and-pale-night full-moon-and-Selene-Diana-Luna-and-Mare-Tranquillitatis luna-and-moonlit-and-silver-and-pale-night surfaces under full-moon-and-Selene-Diana-Luna-and-Mare-Tranquillitatis night-meadow-and-tarn-and-monastic-cloister silver-night-light. Sits at the modifier-and-cosmic end of the grid, parallel to sol and terra in usage.

From the Latin ruber — simply, red. The gemstone is a chromium-tinged corundum, harder than anything in nature except diamond, and so saturated that a fine Burmese pigeon's blood ruby at auction outpaces a comparable diamond by weight. The color borrows the gem's confidence: a clear, glassy red without the brown of garnet or the blue of crimson.