Classification
Considered a half color, pink began appearing in chromatic repertoires in the 1450’s classified amongst the yellows.
In 2015 my friend Abril’s daughter, who was 7 at the time, classified pink and yellow petals she found during a visit to El Chante at Lake Chapala in April 2015. We spent a long weekend during the Easter holiday, and she completed a field diary with her findings.
Fragments of the color chart which was produced in 1692 by Dutch artist A. Boogert. This image and some of the references from this post were taken from the book Pink: History of a Color by Michel Pastoureau. The chart includes over 5,000 shades in nearly 800 of handwritten and hand-painted pages.
Matisse and Pushkin
My two favorite paintings by Henri Matisse, both with prominent pink shades, are housed at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Matisse painted Pink Studio in 1911 and Goldfish in 1912. I took the first picture during a trip to Moscow back in 2018, the second one is a screenshot from Wikipedia.
According to Pastoureau’s book, it was not until the eighteenth century that a flower, a rose, gave the color its name. Here is a poem by Alexander Pushkin about a nightingale and a rose, translated by Phillip Ross Bullock.
In the silence of the gardens, in the darkness of nights in spring,
There sings and sings an oriental nightingale above a rose.
But the lovely rose does not hear him, does not heed him.
Instead, she sways and dozes, lovely rose, to the sounds of his hymn of love.
Is this not how you sing too for cold beauty?
Oh poet, can you not grasp what it is you would attain?
She does not listen, does not hear you, poet;
If you glance at her, she blossoms; but if you call to her - there is no reply.
A Window in 2018
I took this photo the night we arrived in Saint Petersburg. We were staying at a renovated apartment at a run-down building across the Neva River. I loved the contrast of the pink night sky, the green light shade in the alley, and the fluorescent pink light coming out of the window across our building. For many years I’ve collected images of windows at night. I like to imagine the warmth, smell, and the conversation happening inside. Each of them telling a different story.
A Sunday in 1982
In the spirit of imagining other people’s lives, Tina Barney’s work opens a window to private family life. This picture, taken in 1982, presents a family gathering, a pink carpet, and the Sunday edition of the New York Times.
Rosa Mexicano
Three pictures depicting a sometimes-unseen side of Mexico City, in different shades of pink, were published in Mi Valedor magazine in 2024. Mi Valedor is an art project that supports vulnerable communities and is part of the International Network of Street Papers. Photographs by Sonia Madrigal and Hanna Quevedo.
Lost in Translation
The pace, light, and the palette of the first scene announced a different kind of movie. Slow, meditative, feminine, melancholic, it gave me the possibility of exploring my own voice. I also became obsessed with Sophia Coppola. I wanted to be like her. I even bought a now extinct Mark Jacobs perfume because she appeared on the ads. It became the scent of my early years of adulthood, and wearing it brings me back to those times.
A photoshoot of Scarlett Johansson wearing the pink wig appears in the Sophia Coppola Archive.
Complementary colors
Pink and green appear on the opposite side of the color wheel, making them a perfect combination.
Pure and innocent love
Beatriz Gonzalez created three paintings based on the last photograph taken by two lovers before drowning themselves in the Sisga Dam in Colombia. The picture, with their smiling faces and holding a bouquet of white flowers, appeared in the newspapers when the bodies were found.
There is a shop in downtown Mexico City that sells candles in all colors. I tend to gravitate around the pink, orange, and green hues. They wrap the candles in a pink-colored paper, which is often used by butchers to wrap meat. According to an internet search, pink candles represent love in its purest state.
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Postscript: Two messages in pink
I Hate Mondays. Photo taken from my friend Odette’s Instagram. She took this photo in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires in 2023.
A tote bag I bought last month at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Mexico City while visiting the Julieta Aranda exhibition.
