Crimson & Lemon & Magenta

Crimson is the deep gulal — the deep vivid crimson-to-red of the traditional gulal (dry colored powder — from Sanskrit gul, rose) in the deep red-to-crimson color that is one of the most auspicious and most traditionally significant colors in the Holi festival. Gulal is made from various sources: in the traditional preparation, red gulal was made from dried flowers of the tesu (Butea monosperma — the Flame of the Forest, which blooms in February-March exactly at Holi time, producing vivid orange-to-red flowers), kumkum (vermilion — traditionally mercury sulfide or lead oxide, now more commonly synthetic red dye), and madder root (Rubia cordifolia, the traditional red dye plant of India). In the contemporary Holi festival, synthetic aniline and azo dyes provide the most vivid and most consistent colors, including the specific deep crimson-red gulal that is one of the most photographically dramatic elements of the Holi visual spectacle. In the Mathura-Vrindavan Holi tradition (specifically the Lathmar Holi of Barsana — held 9 days before the main Holi — where women beat men with lathis/sticks, and the Rang Panchami of Vrindavan), the deep red gulal is associated with the gopis (cowherd women) and Krishna's primary color of devotion. Lemon is the turmeric water — the vivid pale lemon-to-yellow of the haldi (turmeric — Curcuma longa) water used in the pichkari (water-gun) and the pichkari-and-bucket play of the Holi water festival. Turmeric dissolved in water produces a vivid, slightly warm yellow that is similar to lemon in its pale luminous quality but with a specific warm golden shift. In the Holi festival, turmeric water (and the vivid synthetic yellow gulal that approximates it) creates the most luminously warm element of the palette, saturating clothing, hair, and skin with the most vivid pale yellow. Magenta is the vivid gulal — the electric maximum-saturation magenta of the synthetic gulal that is the most chromatically intense and most immediately recognizable Holi color in international photography. The specific magenta gulal — a near-pure Magenta (#FF00FF) achieved with synthetic aniline or azo dyes (specifically Rhodamine B or similar synthetic red-violet dyes) — creates the most electrically vivid and most photographically dramatic cloud of color in the Holi color festival. The image of magenta gulal powder in mid-air — the vibrant cloud of electric red-violet powder thrown against a clear blue sky — has become the most internationally recognized visual representation of Holi.