Vermilion Cinnabar

Vermilion

Vermilion is a color family and toxic pigment most often used between antiquity and the 19th century and made from the powdered mineral cinnabar. It is synonymous with red orange.

Cinnabar

Cinnabar, also called cinnabarite or mercurblende, is the bright scarlet to brick-red form of mercury(II) sulfide (HgS). It is the most common source ore for refining elemental mercury and is the historic source for the brilliant red or scarlet pigment termed vermilion and associated red mercury pigments.

Shades of red

Varieties of the color red may differ in hue, chroma, lightness, or in two or three of these qualities. Variations in value are also called tints and shades, a tint being a red or other hue mixed with white, a shade being mixed with black. A large selection of these various colors is shown below.

vermilion

Noun

1. A vivid red synthetic pigment made of mercury sulfide, cinnabar.
2. A bright orange-red colour.

Adjective

1. Having a brilliant red colour.
2. Having the color of the vermilion dye.

cinnabar

Noun

1. A deep red mineral, mercuric sulfide, HgS; the principal ore of mercury; such ore used as the pigment vermilion.
2. A bright red colour tinted with orange.

Adjective

1. Of a bright red colour tinted with orange.