Bold Rise Rose

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.

Old English rīsan, to ascend. As a color modifier, rise implies an ascending-and-emerging quality, the visual register of moonrise-and-sunrise ascending-and-emerging horizon-and-celestial-body atmospheric scattering-of-light surfaces under ascending horizon-and-celestial light. Sits at the modifier-and-time end of the grid, parallel to set and sunup in usage.

The Latin rosa, the Greek rhodon, the Persian gul — every European language has a different name for the same flower and the same color. Rose covers the spectrum from blush to fuchsia depending on the cultivar, but in pigment shorthand it means a cool, slightly bluish red — the inside of a damask petal, the dye that washes out of madder root.