A combination of pink and white is associated with chastity and innocence, whereas a combination of pink and black links to eroticism and seduction.

According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most often associated with

Pink is the color of a namesake flower that is a pale tint of red, members of the genus Dianthus.
It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century.

In most European languages, pink is called rose or rosa, after the rose flower.

Roman poets also described the color. Roseus is the Latin word meaning "rosy" or "pink." Lucretius used the word to describe the dawn in his epic poem On the Nature of Things (De rerum natura).

ancient times

In the 13th and 14th centuries, in works by Cimabue and Duccio, the Christ child was sometimes portrayed dressed in pink, the color associated with the body of Christ.

In the high Renaissance painting the Madonna of the Pinks by Raphael, the Christ child is presenting a pink flower to the Virgin Mary. The pink was a symbol of marriage, showing a spiritual marriage between the mother and child.

During the Renaissance, pink was mainly used for the flesh color of faces and hands.

Pink was not a common color in the fashion of the Middle Ages; nobles usually preferred brighter reds, such as crimson.However, it did appear in women's fashion and religious art.

Middle Ages

Renaissance

The zenith of the color pink was the 18th century, when pastel colors became very fashionable in all the courts of Europe. Pink was worn regardless of gender. It was associated with both romanticism and seduction.

Pink was particularly championed by Madame de Pompadour (1721–1764), the mistress of King Louis XV of France, who wore combinations of pale blue and pink, and had a particular tint of pink made for her by the Sevres porcelain factory, created by adding nuances of blue, black and yellow.

While pink was quite evidently the color of seduction in the portraits made by George Romney of Emma, Lady Hamilton, the future mistress of Admiral Horatio Nelson, in the late 18th century, it had the completely opposite meaning in the portrait of Sarah Barrett Moulton painted by Thomas Lawrence in 1794. In this painting, it symbolized childhood, innocence and tenderness. Sarah Moulton was just eleven years of age when the picture was painted, and died the following year.

18th century

In 19th century England, pink ribbons or decorations were often worn by young boys; boys were simply considered small men, and while men in England wore red uniforms, boys wore pink. Girls often wore white and blue. In fact the clothing for children in the 19th century was almost always white, since, before the invention of chemical dyes, clothing of any color would quickly fade when washed in boiling water.

Queen Victoria was painted in 1850 with her seventh child and third son, Prince Arthur, who wore white and pink.

In late nineteenth-century France, Impressionist painters working in a pastel color palette sometimes depicted women wearing the color pink, such as Edgar Degas’ image of ballet dancers or Mary Cassatt’s images of women and children.

19th century

In the 20th century, pinks became bolder, brighter, and more assertive, partly because of the invention of chemical dyes that did not fade.

20th Century till Present

The transition to pink as a sexually differentiating color for girls occurred gradually, through the selective process of the marketplace, in the 1930s and 40s. In the 1920s, some groups had described pink as a masculine color, an equivalent to red, which was considered for men but lighter for boys. But stores nonetheless found that people were increasingly choosing to buy pink for girls, and blue for boys, until this became an accepted norm in the 1940s. By the 1950s, pink was strongly associated with femininity.

The pioneer in the creation of the new wave of pinks was the Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli, (1890-1973), who was aligned with the artists of the surrealist movement, including Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau.

In 1931 she created a new variety of the color, called shocking pink, made by mixing magenta with a small amount of white. Her fashions, co-designed with artists like Cocteau, featured the new pinks.

Elsa Schiaparelli

A dress parade, held on 1949, at the famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, caused a stir among attendees due to the vibrant pink tones in the dresses and garments.

The journalists and critics of the time, seeking to know Mexican designer Ramón Valdiosera's inspiration, asked him about the origin of the color. The artist simply replied that that pink was already part of Mexican culture, which the New York fashion critic Perle Mesta then described as Mexican Pink.

A number of personalities and cultural icons of the 1950s and early 1960s had a great influence on the public awareness and use of pink in fashion and decoration, including Mamie Eisenhower, Marilyn Monroe, and Brigitte Bardot.

The US presidential inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953, when Eisenhower's wife Mamie Eisenhower wore a pink dress as her inaugural gown, is thought to have been a key turning point in the association of pink as a color associated with girls.

Mamie's strong liking of pink led to the public association with pink being a color that "ladylike women wear." So much so, that a particular shade, known as "Mamie Pink" was named after her. The White House was redecorated in pink to such an extent that it became known among the press corps as "The Pink Palace"

The 1957 American musical Funny Face also played a role in cementing the color's association with women. Funny Face is romantic comedy film directed by Stanley Donen containing assorted songs by George and Ira Gershwin. The film stars are Fred Astaire, Audrey Hepburn and Kay Thompson.

Mamie Eisenhower

Marilyn Monroe

Brigitte Bardot

Jacqueline Kennedy

Audrey Hepburn

White House illuminated pink in honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 2017

10 Downing Street lit up in pink on October 25, 2011, for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

As of 2008 various feminist groups and the Breast Cancer Awareness Month use the color pink to convey empowerment of women. Breast cancer charities around the world have used the color to symbolize support for people with breast cancer and promote awareness of the disease. A key tactic of these charities is encouraging women and men to wear pink to show their support for breast cancer awareness and research.

The pink ribbon has been a symbol of breast cancer awareness since 1991.

Idioms and expressions

To be in top form, in good health, in good condition. In Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio says; "I am the very pink of courtesy." Romeo: Pink for flower? Mercutio: Right. Romeo: Then my pump is well flowered."

To be given a pink slip means to be fired or dismissed from a job. It was first recorded in 1915 in the United States.

Tickled pink means extremely pleased.

Early pink buildings were usually built of brick or sandstone, which takes its pale red color from hematite, or iron ore. In the 18th century - the golden age of pink and other pastel colors - pink mansions and churches were built all across Europe.

More modern pink buildings usually use the color pink to appear exotic or to attract attention.

Architecture

According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most associated with sweet foods and beverages. Pink is also one of the few colors to be strongly associated with a particular aroma, that of roses.

Many strawberry and raspberry-flavored foods are colored pink and light red as well, sometimes to distinguish them from cherry-flavored foods that are more commonly colored dark red (although raspberry-flavored foods, particularly in the United States, are often colored blue as well). The drink Tab was packaged in pink cans, presumably to subconsciously convey a sweet taste.

Pink champagne takes its color either when temporarily fermented with the skins of dark purple grapes, or by adding a small amount of red wine.

Bunga kuda (also known as bunga pundak) is a traditional dessert in Malaysia, containing a coconut filling

Traditional rosé wines get their color when temporarily fermented with dark purple grapeskins.

Food and beverages

Pink in nature

Geology

Calcite from Bou Azzer, Morocco

Barite-Rhodochrosite from the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in China.

Corundum, or pink sapphire, from the Dodoma Region of Tanzania.

Rough rose quartz

Angel's Landing in Zion National Park in Utah is made of pink sandstone.

A pink sand beach on Tikehau in French Polynesia

Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in Utah. The colour is from Navajo Sandstone, reddish hematite mixed with white quartz grains