The importance of color for artists goes beyond any description. Everyone has their favorites and applies them directly or in combination, but there are times when intensity matters above all else. The Pinkest Pink by British artist Stuart Semple goes in that direction. Its pink is so intense and vibrant that conventional cameras and screens cannot reproduce it accurately, and according to its creator "it's crazy" under ultraviolet lights.
The limits of RGB
The RGB color composition system works with values from 0 to 255 (8 bits per primary, 16,777,216 colors). Anyone wanting to experiment with this can do so with a basic graphics editor, and I presume they'll be able to discover very interesting colors. That said, there are some limits, and nobody denies that RGB encoding has them, but they are more evident on computer and mobile device screens. There are colors that simply cannot be reproduced on a common panel, and one of them is the Pinkest Pink by Stuart Semple.
The story behind Pinkest Pink
The story behind Pinkest Pink is fascinating, and it begins with Vantablack. Max covered part of the details in his Recommended Links 391, but we must go back to the year 2014, when Vantablack was presented to the world as "the substance with the most perfect black", absorbing 99.96 percent of the radiation in the visible spectrum. Vantablack is commercialized by Surrey NanoSystems Limited, however, British artist Anish Kapoor acquired the rights for the artistic use of Vantablack and refused to share it with his colleagues, retaining exclusivity. Several artists came out against Kapoor, essentially accusing him of "confiscating" Vantablack, but Semple declared open war and launched his Pinkest Pink as a response, prohibiting its use to anyone except Anish Kapoor. Even so, Kapoor managed to obtain a jar of Pinkest Pink, and he expressed himself about it on Instagram, provoking a strong backlash.
In addition to Pinkest Pink, Semple also offers equivalents in blue, green, yellow, and black, quite close to Vantablack… or at least, that's what my screen suggests. Each 50-gram jar costs between 4.5 and 5.5 euros. Honestly, I thought accessing the pinkest pink would be very expensive...
